


The Secret Prince

by Bellobelle



Series: The Secret Prince [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Kidnapping, M/M, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-11 05:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3316595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bellobelle/pseuds/Bellobelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin and Arthur's life as rulers of Camelot and parents of baby Gareth are thrown into disarray when Merlin and the baby are kidnapped by the queen of a distant kingdom. Seeking to gain the baby's magical powers for herself, she raises him as her own and throws Merlin in the dungeons to rot. Seven years later, the young Prince Owen of Doria finds himself in the dungeons and meets a mysterious, silent man in chains.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Merlin could hear the baby's wails over the shouting, high and screeching and horrible. He lifted his arms in the direction of the sound, hands seeking, reaching, to get to the baby…

Dull pain flared as a heavily booted foot pinned his forearm to the ground.

"Don't worry about the babe," said the boot's owner, "We won't hurt him." The man spoke with a peculiar accent that Merlin had heard before, but couldn't place through the dull pain in the back of his head.

"Gareth…" Merlin gurgled. They'd hit him on the head. His vision was swirling with black, his mind was a whirl of panic. It slowed his movements, but he struggled anyways, trying to get up, trying to get to the baby, trying to get away. The boot on his arm increased in pressure.

"Daniel!" A voice barked, "Haven't you got him ready yet?"

The man above Merlin grunted in response, and Merlin could hear the loud clinking of metal being drawn from a leather pouch.

"Hurry up," Said the other man as he approached. He must have been carrying Gareth, because the sound of his cries got louder.

"Gareth," Merlin breathed. His baby was close, and crying. His voice, so big for someone so little, pierced through the air like an arrow into Merlin's very heart.

His head cleared as determination flooded his senses; He had to get to Gareth. The blackness faded from the edges of his vision and he managed to turn his head towards his attacker.

He gathered his magic. One blow would send this man flying, far enough that Merlin would be able to stand and paralyze the other one so that he could grab Gareth. He could turn the attackers into stone and smash them to pieces, scatter their dust in the river so that they could never lay a hand on Gareth again.

Merlin felt the magic rush up through his arm, but instead of feeling the release of a burst of power, there was excruciating, searing pain.

He cried out and writhed. His vision went white with agony, every part of his body burning as if he were on fire.

"No magic, Lord Merlin," Said the man above him. After a minute the pain faded, and in his now near delirious state Merlin was aware of a ring of metal encircling his wrist.

"What have you done to me?" Merlin tried to ask, but all that came out was a pitiful series of coughs.

Another circle of metal was clamped around his other wrist, and a larger one was forced around his neck. It was like ice against his skin, and Merlin suddenly felt cold all over as he realized what had been done.

He tried to summon his magic again, but he knew it wouldn't come. It stayed trapped inside, raging against his skin like a storm, but unable to get out. Pain flared once again.

When the pain cleared this time, Merlin had been flung across the back of a horse. Somewhere close by Gareth was still screaming.

Gareth, Merlin called in his mind, Gareth, Gareth, Gareth…

"Don't worry," Said the man riding the horse Merlin was flung across, "The babe will be completely safe in Lady Beatrix's arms."

Lady Beatrix? Merlin had heard the name before, in one of the knight's reports, maybe. He tried to remember where she was from. Southern Gaul, perhaps, close enough to be known but too far away to be important. Before Merlin had come to Camelot he'd known very little about the world beyond Ealdor. He'd heard the names "Brittany" and "Gaul" and "Ireland" by travelers who stopped to rest in their little inn, who said they lay vaguely south, or west, but his knowledge hadn't gone much beyond that. Then one day after their wedding Arthur had shown Merlin a map of their world. He'd pointed to Camelot, in the south of a long, wide island. Gaul, where Merlin was sure he was being taken now, was on a much larger mass of land so immense that it disappeared off the side of the page. It would take them weeks to get there.

The thought of Arthur sent another bolt of pain through his heart. Merlin had left his husband so quickly that day, complaining that Gareth shouldn't have to be in his stuffy nursery when there was perfectly good sunshine outside for him to play in. Merlin had taken Gareth out for a ride in the woods, leaving Arthur to his tedious council. He'd given Arthur a hurried kiss goodbye, promising that he'd be home soon.

How long would it take for Arthur to realize they weren't coming back? They could be across the Channel by the time a search party had decided the forest was empty. And what would Arthur do then? He couldn't drop his duties to search for long, he had a kingdom to run. But he would, Merlin knew, because a broken heart could rule Arthur like nothing else. He'd tear the world apart to find Merlin and Gareth if he could. Merlin could only hope that he found them soon, before Camelot would have time to fall to ruin.

Gareth didn't stop screaming. Merlin cursed the iron that kept his magic sealed inside of him. He'd burn their captors alive, if only he could, for daring to harm his little prince. He could be back in Camelot with Gareth safe in his arms before Arthur even knew they'd been gone. But without his magic he was helpless.

Fatigue layered into Merlin's head as they made their way south. Despite his pain and despite his heartache, Merlin fell asleep on the back of the horse. Gareth's screams continued on in his dreams. It would be decades before they went away.

They made quick progress across the land. The overpowering pain faded into a low, slow soreness in the pit of Merlin's stomach. He was left with the ache of grief whenever he heard Gareth's cries or thought of Arthur, alone and missing his family.

As soon as Merlin regained his voice he started shouting, and when they beat him into quiet he cried and asked if he could just hold Gareth for a while. They said no, and when Merlin didn't stop begging they stuffed a rag in his mouth and tied it around his head.

"Still don't see why we can't just cut his throat," one of them said gruffly.

"Guilt," the other replied, "The Lady thinks she's being merciful."

The first one snorted.

They met a woman who had apparently been waiting for them in a town near the sea, and she became Gareth's source of food for the rest of the journey. She avoided Merlin's eye as she let Gareth suckle her breast, and winced whenever she heard Merlin's muffled sobs around the gag.

Merlin's arms burned with the need to hold his son again. The pain of being so close to Gareth yet completely unable to help him hurt worse than any pain that the iron shackles brought him. It seared through his veins like venom and left his heart destroyed. Let them keep his magic restrained, let them gag and hit and starve him, if only Merlin could have his child again.

The sky was black when they finally reached their destination. There were no stars, only the cold gusts of wind that whipped around them as they entered the gates of a dark castle.

Torches lit the halls with an orange glow. One man had to hold Merlin up by the arm, for Merlin was too weak to walk upright. The other man held Gareth, blessedly asleep.

They arrived at a door which was flung open when one of the men knocked and said in a voice just above a whisper, "My lady, we have returned."

A tall woman in a nightgown stood in the doorway, blue eyes wide and glittering in the torchlight.

"You have the babe?" She whispered, eyes already fixed in wonder to the bundle in the one man's arms.

"Prince Gareth of Camelot," The man presented the bundle to her, and she reached forward to touch the blanket away from Gareth's sleeping face with shaking hands.

"He's more beautiful than I imagined," she said. She held her fingers to Gareth's face, skimming his soft skin, for several more moments before she seemed to remember herself.

"Get inside," She said, and stood back to shoo the party into her chambers.

It was built of stone and hung with large curtains of cloth, richly embroidered with silver and bronze thread, which covered the walls. The floors were covered with furs that were soft to Merlin's bare feet, his shoes lost somewhere between Camelot and here.

The lady drew back one of the curtains and rapped her knuckles sharply on a door that had been hidden behind it.

"Linete!" She called, and immediately a girl appeared, blinking sleep from her eyes.

"My lady?"

"Light the candles. We have guests."

The girl curtsied and scurried away. A candelabra with several candles stood near the corner, and as the girl lit it the room became illuminated with a gentle glow. Dark shapes were revealed to be furniture: a wooden chest of drawers, a bed hung with curtains, a table and chairs, at which the lady gestured for the men to sit.

Merlin watched as the lady took Gareth into her arms, crooning as she did so.

"He's beautiful," she said again. "He's going to be so lovely."

"He wouldn't stop crying," one of the men complained.

"Neither would he," said the other man, jerking his thumb at Merlin.

"Don't worry, little Gareth will have a lovely home here. He'll soon be the happiest child in the kingdom. What shall I name him, do you think? Brice is such a lovely name, or Grant, or Euan...

"As for him," The lady finally looked at Merlin, "He'll be silenced soon enough."

She reached out a bony hand to yank the gag from Merlin's mouth.

"Arthur will find us," Merlin said once his tongue was freed, "He will come, and he will destroy you."

The lady smiled.

"Lady Beatrix," She introduced herself, "Queen of Doria. Have you heard of me?"

"Once," Merlin answered.

"As I thought," Beatrix said. "Doria's quite a small country. Nobody pays us very much attention!" She laughed. "The land has no riches, we have no slaves, our army is small and irrelevant. Why would anybody pay attention to us?" She laughed again.

"But you come from Camelot," she said, fixing Merlin with a thoughtful, wistful look. "Shining, glittering Camelot of legend. I've never been, but oh, how the bards sing of Camelot. Of its might and its riches. And its king." The last word was said with a sly grin. "You know this king well, don't you?"

Merlin only glared.

"I have in my castle King Arthur's beloved husband, and in my arms," she looked back down with a terrifyingly tender look, "I have King Arthur's magical son. I have such plans for him."

"What will you do to him?" Merlin demanded to know.

"Nothing. I will be a good mother to him," Beatrix answered, "But he will be useful to me, once he is grown. He will love me, and I will teach him to love this small country of ours, and he will want to make it great. With the magic that courses through him, who will be able to stop him?"

"You are vile," Merlin spat.

"And you have been here for too long," Beatrix said. She stood to tower above Merlin's chair. She nodded to one of her men, who also stood and drew his short knife from its place at his belt.

"I'm not going to kill you," Beatrix reassured him, as Merlin's eyes grew wide and he shrank back from the knife that reflected the candlelight in its blade, "I'm not a cruel woman. But you need to be silenced, I'm afraid, and though I regret it, there's only one way to ensure that."

The other man grabbed Merlin's hair and yanked his head back, the other hand grabbing his jaw and forcing his mouth open. The man with the knife reached into Merlin's mouth and grabbed his tongue. The cold edge of the blade pressed against it.

Merlin couldn't hear, couldn't see; everything was narrowed into one point of panic inside of his own mouth. Every heartbeat, every intake of breath accelerated to impossible speeds, his vision went black with fear. He kicked his legs and started to whimper around the hand stretching his jaw.

Blood flooded his mouth.

"Try not to scream," Beatrix said, as Merlin began to convulse. "It would wake the baby."


	2. Chapter One

There's a dark staircase at the end of the hallway that Owen is not allowed to enter. Mother made that very clear.

"It's no place for sweet young princes," she had said, hunched over because Owen was too small for her to stand upright and hold his hand at the same time. She dragged him along, but Owen couldn't help but look back at the dark hole in the wall that led down, somewhere deep inside the castle. There was something about it that made him curious. It was forbidden, and therefore exciting. There weren't many places Owen wasn't allowed to go. Mother didn't like him going up to the towers, because he might fall, but she let him as long as she or Father was there to steady him.

Owen could see the whole the whole citadel from the towers. "One day this will be yours, my darling," Mother often whispered into his ear, her hands steady on his hips, "Isn't it just beautiful?"

It was. Any place that has ample place to play is beautiful to a child. The crowded huts provided alleys to hide in, the growling bitches made puppies to run with, the wet mud that constantly filled the streets made a delightful filth to splash in. Owen didn't see the gaunt faces of the people, the sparse threads that covered their bodies even in winter that showed the prominent ribs beneath. He only saw his friends, children of the baker and the blacksmith and the seamstress. There was no hunger or cold or disease. There were sticks that became swords, flowers that became crowns, puppies that were fierce dragons.

The capital of Doria was Owen's personal playground. He could run and play anywhere he pleased, so long as he came when Mother called him. Why, then, was this staircase forbidden to him?

"There's nothing but rats down there," Mother told him, when Owen wouldn't stop asking every time they passed the staircase.

"Why did you build a room for the rats?" It didn't make any sense to have a room that nobody would use.

"It was supposed to be a dungeon, when the castle was first built," Mother explained, "But we don't use it anymore. We aren't cruel people. There's nobody down there anymore."

"So why can't I go down and see it?"

"It's a horrible place," Mother had said, "It's cold and dark and nasty, it's no place for you. I want you to promise me that you will never go down there. Do you promise?"

Owen wanted to say no, that he wanted to see what was down in that dark mysterious place, but Mother was giving him that stern look that meant she would be very angry if he didn't obey, so he nodded solemnly.

"Good," Mother smiled. Owen never asked about the staircase again.

Now, Owen finds himself staring down into the depths of the staircase, biting his lip and trembling.

The sound of his ball going bounce, bounce, bounce down the stone steps had soon disappeared, swallowed by the blackness. It's his favorite ball, and Owen hadn't meant to send it flying down the stairs. It was a gift from Father for his seventh birthday, made of smooth pig skin that gives it a satisfying bounce when he throws it. It is the envy of all of his friends who live in the lower town.

He can't just leave it down there, where the rats can get it.

But Mother would be furious if she ever found out. What would she do if she caught him? She'd told Owen that he was never, ever to go there, and he'd be going against her wishes. Worse, he'd promised her that he wouldn't. What kind of son breaks a promise to his mother?

But it is his favorite ball down there.

Perhaps he can run down and get her, and she can send someone else down to fetch the ball for him. But that would be a hassle, and she might be angry that Owen was playing alone so close to the forbidden staircase anyway.

Owen glances around. There's nobody in this part of the castle. Surely it won't take long to just run down and grab the ball. He can have his ball and Mother will never know that he broke his promise to her.

It's the middle of the day, so there are no torches lit. Owen walks to the nearest one, a wooden stake resting in its place against the wall, and snatches it up. With a thought, it bursts into flame to light his way.

Owen walks onto the first step. The darkness looms in front of him, like the throat of a great dragon about to swallow him up. He gulps and takes another step.

He walks softly down the stairs. They seem to go on forever, covered in cobwebs and rat droppings. Spiders skitter away from him as he goes. A shiver passes down Owen's spine. Excitement stirs, restlessly urging him forward. As guilty as he feels, he can't help the anticipation to finally see what it is that he isn't allowed to see. There could be magical creatures down here, or piles and piles of riches. Maybe there are beautiful ladies in soft gowns who live here, who will welcome Owen when he enters their home.

By the time he reaches the bottom, his imagination has grown so great that he expects there really is something extraordinary waiting for him. He's nearly shaking with the need to see what it is. The light falls in a circle in front of him, and he looks eagerly to see what he'll find.

His shoulders slump in disappointment. There really are only rats. He can see the flash of their tails as they scuffle away from his light, hear them scuffling further into the darkness.

He's in a long corridor, broken up on either side with holes covered in bars. Owen lifts the torch to peer past them and finds an empty room.

Owen slumps with disappointment. Mother was right, there really are only empty dungeon cells down here, nothing interesting at all. Not even any bones of dead prisoners.

He sighs, the sound of his breath echoing loudly against the stone. He turns away from the empty, boring cell and looks for his ball.

After a few more steps, he finds it resting against the bars of another cell, recently broken cobwebs clinging to it and fluttering in the slight draft. Owen leaps forward to retrieve it, footsteps almost deafening in the silence. The sound of his shoes scuffing repeat over and over, a ghost of himself running long after Owen has stopped.

Owen has picked up his ball and brushed off the cobwebs and is about to leave when he hears something.

It's only just loud enough to make him pause. The faint clinking of metal, somewhere close by.

Owen frowns. That's not his echo, he's pretty sure. He pauses to listen, and there it is again, accompanied by a shuffling. It sounds like the chains that the blacksmith has in a coil hanging on a hook that clang whenever they're hit. Surely no rat could cause that kind of noise.

Renewed excitement sparks in Owen. This could be his creature, the magical hidden wonder he's so sure Mother has kept down here.

"Hello?" Owen calls, "Is anyone there?"

There's an answering rattle of metal on metal, and Owain all but drops his things in delight. With the ball clutched in one hand and the torch in the other, Owen walks as fast as he dares in the direction of the sound.

Owen reaches the cell he thought the sound came from and thrusts the torch against the bars.

This is no exciting magical creature, but there certainly is something crouched on the floor. It's a man, twisted and covered in dirt and staring at Owen.

"Hello," Owen says, "Who are you?"

The man says nothing, just stares. His eyes are huge and sunken. Something about his expression makes Owen uneasy: he's staring at Owen with unblinking intensity, like he can't quite believe what he's seeing, so he must not blink and he must not turn his head or else this extraordinary thing will go away. Owen wonders what's so special. He's just a boy, surely this man has seen boys before.

The man's eyes are blue and covered with a thin film of white. His head is covered in scraggly matted black hair, from the top of his head to his beard, which covers his shoulders and dangles down to his chest. His clothes are gross, but Owen recognizes the faded purple and the remains of fur lining. They must have been expensive once upon a time, before they became so tattered and dirty.

"What are you down here for?" Owen asks. "What, can't you speak?"

The man shuffles forward on his knees, raises himself up to better stare. Owen pouts in annoyance.

"I don't see what's so scary about you," he says, "You're all dirty and chained up. I don't see why I shouldn't be allowed know you're here. You don't even talk."

The man shakes his head and opens his mouth. Owen gasps.

Between the man's lips, where a tongue should be, there is nothing. There's just a gaping hole and behind his teeth, yellow and rotted in places.

"You don't have a tongue!" Owen exclaims. The man closes his mouth and shakes his head sadly.

"You must have said something just awful to have your tongue cut out," Owen says. "I once said a curse word and Mother just hit me on the cheek. What did you say? Oh, you can't answer that."

The ma's hands grasp the bars, rough and rusted between them. He stretches the fingers of one skeletal hand just beyond the bars, trembling, the flickering light of the torch turning them ghastly. Owen sees that there are metal cuffs around his wrists, which must have been there for some time because they've become molded to the skin, the flesh there red and angry. Owen reaches forward, unthinkingly, to touch that skin. He's never seen metal embedded into human flesh like this.

The man holds perfectly still while Owen touches his wrist. There's a flicker of something, a ghost of a feeling that stirs in the depths of his mind. A glimmer that's not quite a spark, just a whisper of something grander.

The moment passes and Owen forgets. He runs his thumb over the point where the metal meets the skin, red and black and blue all around when Owen turns it. The gnarled skin feels tough when he prods it with his own finger.

"Does this hurt?" Owen asks. The man nods but otherwise keeps perfectly still. Even his hand, which was trembling so badly before, is calm in Owen's small ones. He watches Owen like he's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. Owen frowns.

"You must be a terrible man," he decides, "Mother would never do something like this unless she absolutely had to. She doesn't like hurting people unless she must."

Owen drops the man's hand, but the hand remains in the air between them, fingers extended in Owen's direction.

"Except you don't look terrible," Owen says, peering into the parts of the man's face that's not obscured by hair. "How do you eat? Does someone bring you food?"

The man turns his head and nods at a pile of tiny bones. Dead rats. Owen wrinkles his nose.

"I'm sure nobody has ever done anything bad enough to deserve to eat rats," he says. "I can bring you something else to eat, if you like."

The man's eyes widen and he nods his head vigorously. Owen grins.

"Hera is making dumplings today. She's the cook. And I think there's some bread with goat cheese in it, I could get you some of that."

Already Owen's mind is running away with him. This man could be his secret friend. He's never had a secret from Mother, it could be fun to sneak around. He could have this friend all to himself and he wouldn't have to share with anyone else.

"I'll get you a blanket too," Owen says, "And a candle! It's so dark down here." He jumps a little on his feet and grins. "We can be friends! I can come here every day and bring you food. We can play pretend! I'll be the valiant knight and you can be the dragon, and I will capture you and keep you here as my mighty magical pet."

It's hard to tell, but the man seems to be smiling. Owen finds with some alarm that there are tears forming in his eyes, clean tracks carved in the dirt on his cheeks and disappearing into the tangles of his beard.

"Don't cry!" Owen says, "We'll have fun, I promise!"

The man wipes his eyes, the chains clinking as they move with his wrist. He nods.

"Great!" Owen exclaims, "I'll be right back!" He turns to race down the corridor, then, as a thought occurs to him, he turns back.

"Take this," he says, and pushes his ball through the bars into the man's cell. "I know grown ups don't play with toys, but you could play with this. You look pretty bored."

The man takes up the ball and holds it gingerly in his hands. He looks down at the ball almost reverently, then back up at Owen. His eyes are shining with tears again.

"Father gave me that ball for my seventh birthday," Owen says proudly. "It's made of the finest pig skin in all of Doria. None of my friends have a ball like this one. I bet none of them have a secret friend in the dungeons either," he adds.

"Now you mustn't tell Mother I was here," Owen warns, "I promised her I would never come down here, and she will be very angry with me if she finds out I broke my promise."

The man makes a criss-cross over his heart and holds up his palm.

"Good!" Owen says brightly. "I know we're going to be good friends. I'll be right back."

He turns away and runs to find the man some food.


	3. Chapter Two

Nobody bothers him as he runs back to the staircase, bent double to keep the sack of food he'd stuffed under his shirt from falling. After a quick glance around to make sure there's no one to see him breaking the rules, Owen slips down where the light of his torch is swallowed by the darkness.

The tunnel is still just as damp and covered in a thick veil of cobwebs, and the more Owen sees the more excited he gets. It reminds him of the stories Mother tells him of knights and their grand adventures and quests that bring honor and prestige to their kingdom's name. This dark dreary tunnel is the entrance to a dragon's cave, Owen imagines, where there's an all-powerful wizard disguised as a hermit who has been held captive for ten hundred years, and he will beg Owen to slay the dragon because only Owen is strong enough to do it, and in exchange he will use his powers to make Owen king of the world.

The clink of the chains is immediate, and it makes him grin and run faster to know that his new friend is waiting for him.

"Look!" Owen exclaims by way of greeting, "Hera made dumplings and there are fresh strawberries! And I got you some bread, it's a few days old but there's goat cheese mixed in with it so it's still really good."

As he speaks he dumps the sack of food on the ground and unties the string so that the cloth falls to reveal the perfect pile of nourishment. Owen beams at it like it's gold.

"This is my favorite," Owen says as he passes the bread through the bars, "On holidays Hera makes me an entire loaf just for me, and Mother lets me eat as much as I want."

The man takes the food and hesitates. He holds it in his hands, tears off a piece, rolls it around his fingers.

"Go on," Owen encourages, "I'm sure Hera will make another loaf soon."

The man raises the torn off piece to his lips.

"Good, huh?" Owen says as the man chews, "It's much better than rat, isn't it? Isn't it delicious?"

The man doesn't answer. He takes a gigantic bite of the bread and tears off almost half of it in one go.

"You eat strangely," Owen remarks, because the man does. The top of his head bobbing up-down-up-down, increasingly more frantic the more he eats, and he shoves his fingers to the back of his throat after every bite.

Owen hands the man the strawberries next and then the dumplings, still warm from the oven. The man is breathing heavily through the nose and seems to be enjoying himself immensely, if the happy little moans are anything to go by.

When the food is gone Owen hands the man the empty sack for the man to wipe his face with. The man does, then promptly lurches to the far corner of his cell and vomits.

"Ew," Owen wrinkles his nose. The stench isn't overpowering, not compared to what the air already smelled like, but it's gross all the same. "I suppose it didn't agree with you."

Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, the man gestures feebly to the pile of rat bones, then to the empty sack. He moves his hands in large circular motions.

"Was it too much?" Owen asks, and the man nods. "Well, you'll get used to it. Nobody should have to live off rat."

The man is still gagging a little, but he smiles all the same and pats his stomach heartily.

"Do you want me to get you some more?" Owen offers, and starts to run off again, but he's stopped by a sudden clanking and a hoarse groaning sound. The man is leaning against the bars, staring so hard at Owen that he starts to wonder if the man can see right through him.

"What's wrong?"

The man shakes his head slowly and lowers a shaking hand to the floor beyond the bars, patting it twice.

Owen smiles. "Sure, I'll stay with you," He says, and plops himself cross-legged onto the floor. The man looks overjoyed at this and clasps his hands together to show his excitement. The chains that dangle from his wrists drag on the floor.

There's a moment when they just sit and look at each other in the complete silence that is the dungeon. The man has a look of pure wonderment behind his scraggly beard, and Owen thinks he could be a fearsome beast in need of slaying by a handsome knight. Or he could be an innocent who was cursed by a witch and only the best knight in the world can set him free. This man is an adventure, the best adventure anyone has ever had, probably. He's mysterious, he's curious, and he's all Owen's to play with.

"My name is Owen," Owen says suddenly. "I'm the prince of this castle. Do you know me? How long have you been here?"

The man holds up seven bony fingers.

"That's how old I am!" Owen exclaims, "So you don't know me. Well alright then, my name is Prince Owen of Doria and I am very pleased to meet you." Owen sticks his hand out like Mother taught him to and waits for the man to clasp it with his own dirty fingers.

There's a rasping noise then, and Owen freezes in fear- it must be giant magical rats come to eat him up for lunch, Mother was right- until he realizes that the rasping sound is coming from the man's mouth.

"hhh-" The man utters like he has grass shoved down his throat, "hhhh, hh-o, Oh, Ohweh." 

It's scratchy and rough, but Owen recognizes the feeble string of sounds as his own name.

"So you can talk!" Owen brightens, "That's brilliant!"

"Oweh." The man smiles. He squeezes the hand Owen is still holding. "Oweh."

"Owen," Owen repeats, "What's your name?"

"Mmm," The man mumbles, falters, coughs, tries again. "Mmmuhhheh. Muh. Mm."

"That's okay," Owen interrupts, because the man suddenly looks pained for some reason, frustrated at his inability to form a single word. "I don't need your name. You can just be the man in the dungeon. There's only one, I think."

Then the man does a strange thing. With the hand that isn't still curiously holding onto Owen's, he pats his chest over his heart, then reaches over to point his fingertips to the same place on Owen.

Owen looks down at his chest, but the man has already withdrawn his hand.

"What'd you do that for?"

He just sighs and pats his chest again, gazing at Owen with a fiercely tender look that Owen hasn't the faintest idea how to understand.

"Well," Owen says slowly, "In any case, I am pleased to meet your acquaintance, Man in the Dungeon." He doesn't know what acquaintance means, or why he should be pleased to meet it when he's only greeting one person, but it's something Mother taught him to say. He shakes the man's hand one more time, then drops it. The man's fingers linger in the air before he lets them drift to hang over the bottom-most bar.

Owen looks around. "What do you do down here?" Owen asks. "There's nobody for you to play with, is there?"

The man shakes his head.

"That's a shame," Owen frowns. "Everyone should have someone to play with. Unless you did something very bad. What have you done?"

There's no answer, but Owen didn't expect one. He stands up before the man has a chance to shake his head, dusts the dirt from his trousers, and looks about for something to do.

The light from the torch he left on the floor lights the corridor a few paces on either side of him. There are cobwebs as thick as Mother's beloved tapestries sticking to the walls and hanging down from empty candelabras, casting complete screens over all of the cells except the one that's occupied. Rat droppings cover the stone floor. There isn't much else than that.

"You have my ball," Owen remembers, and an idea comes to him as he says it. "My prized ball! My treasure! Unhand it, feind!"

He points a gleeful finger at the man who is still kneeling on the floor.

"Bandits like you ought to hang!" Owen conjures up his best fearsome scowl, like Mother whenever she sees he's ruined a perfectly nice shirt in the mud in the lower town. "Return my treasure or face my wrath!"

The man, Owen is pleased to see, makes an excellently stricken face.

"I will leave you here to rot if you do not obey!"

The way the man scrambles into his cell to retrieve the ball makes Owen grin. With his dirty rags and chains, the man makes a wonderful captured villain.

In a flash the man is back, for he didn't have far to go. He brushes the dirt off of the ball and offers it through the bars, his face still as stricken as before. Owen frowns.

"Well that's no good," He says, "You're not supposed to give it to me right away."

The man tilts his head. His eyes are wide with fear as he freezes with the ball clutched tightly in his hands, unsure of what to do with it. He stares.

"It's no fun if you just do what I say," Owen says. The man still looks confused, and Owen thinks back to what might possibly be difficult to understand. The way the man had scrambled to get the ball comes to him, and Owen suddenly realizes that the man had been afraid that Owen would leave him all alone.

"It's a game," he explains, "I won't really leave you down here. I'm the king, you see, because I will be king of Doria one day. You're the evil bandit who captured my treasure and I get to deal with you. It's just pretend. You've played pretend before, haven't you?"

Relief washes over the man's entire body. He smiles, a little sheepish, and puckers his lips so that he can utter a deliberate, "Oh."

Owen smiles happily.

"You see, I won't actually leave you," He reassures him, "Only when I have to eat and learn my lessons. I'll keep you company, even though Mother says I'm not supposed to be here."

The man nods happily. All of a sudden he hugs the ball to his chest and hunches himself over it, baring his teeth.

"You villain!" Owen cries and draws himself up to his fullest height. "I'll show you to disobey your mighty king!"

The man grins and shakes his shaggy head and rolls away to the back of his cell.

"That's it! I hereby command you, by power of the king, to release the royal treasury!"

And so they began their game.

 

Some hours later Owen sits at the table in his chambers staring glumly at the goblet of water before him.

"Try again," Mother says gently from behind him. Her hands come to rest on his shoulders, and Owen tries to focus on their soft pressure rather than his failure.

"I can't do it, Mother," tells her.

"Yes, you can."

"I can't!"

Mother squeezes his shoulders.

"Focus hard," she says, "You're almost there. All you need is a little push. Try again."

Owen keeps his arguments inside and does as he's told. He stares hard at the water in the goblet and strains every muscle of his head forward, reaching deep within himself to touch the water without touching it.

"Focus, Owen," Mother whispers, and Owen tries, but after several minutes of him pushing and pushing and still nothing has happened, he gives up.

"My head hurts," He mutters.

"Nonsense," Mother says, suddenly straightening. Her hands leave Owen's shoulders and Owen suddenly feels weightless and ungrounded and wishes she would come back. "If you can tip the goblet over, you can turn the water into wine. You just need to try harder."

"But I am trying," Owen insists, "I can't do it!"

"Not with an attitude like that you won't." Mother walks around the table to sit across from him and fixes him with a stare that gives Owen a bad feeling. "It's my fault," she sighs, "I've been too soft on you and now you don't believe in yourself. Oh, I've been such a bad mother."

"No!" Owen protests, "It's my fault, Mother, I should try harder. You're a wonderful mother, I couldn't ask for a better one. It's my fault."

She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes and makes Owen think she doesn't want to smile at all.

"My sweet boy," she says, "I know you want to do better. You will do."

"But what if I can't?" Owen asks in a small voice, "I've tried so hard. I don't think I'm as powerful as I'm supposed to be."

"Nonsense," Mother says again. "The power is inside of you, I know it is. Just do it."

She gestures meaningfully to the goblet, and Owen sighs and refocuses on the water inside of it. There's a faint taste of wine on Owen's tongue from the sip Mother gave him at the start of today's lesson so he would know what the water is supposed to turn into. He smacks his lips and imagines the water taking on the taste of the wine, turning opaque and red. He imagines how delighted Mother will be if she sees he's succeeded, and how disappointed she will be when he fails.

He stares so hard that his head starts to throb. Even through the pain Owen chants in his mind wine, wine, wine. He can feel his magic oozing out of him into the goblet, but it's not enough to do what Mother wants.

With frustration he pushes his magic and the goblet tips over, spilling the contents all across the table.

"Damnit, Owen," Mother says.

Owen slumps forward like a puppet whose strings had been slashed. He lands in the growing puddle of water. It's soothing against his flaming skin, but his head won't stop pounding.

"It hurts, Mother."

She sighs.

"I'm sorry," Owen says.

There's a rustle of fabric and the scrape of a chair, and then there's a hand on Owen's back.

"Get up, sweetheart, or you'll wrinkle your tunic."

Owen braces himself against the edge of the table and pushes himself off the table, water dripping down his cheek and soaking into his collar.

"Look at me." She curls her fingers, soft and elegant, around his chin and guides his face towards hers. "I know you can do it," she tells him, "Look at how easy it was for you to knock over the goblet. Changing a little bit of water isn't much harder. The power is inside of you."

Owen feels his lower lip begin to tremble. "I don't think it is, Mother."

Mother frowns. "Come with me."

She takes his hand and waits for him to climb down from the chair before leading him to the tall window that overlooks the bustling town's higher market, where the kingdom's best and most skilled workers and artisans set up their shops. Children run with dogs between the legs and skirts of the grown-ups going this way and that with baskets and sacks filled with linens and food for the week.

"What do you see?" Mother asks.

Owen looks at the market, at the clusters of huts beyond where the lower market is, and the woods and green hills that lie beyond that, bathed entirely in the golden autumn sun.

"Doria," he says.

"That's right," Mother says. "This is our kingdom. This land and these people are our responsibility. It's our job to protect them. There are invaders who would like to take this land for themselves and then what would happen to our lovely Doria?"

Down next to the blacksmith's shop, where the market ends and the dirt road leads into the village, Owen can see two of his friends digging in the dirt. Mara and Duncan.

"Those are your friends down there, right?" Mother says, looking where Owen is looking. "What are they doing?"

"They're digging," Owen answers, "For worms, probably."

"They're playing," Mother says. "Instead of having any lessons. Why do you think that is?"

"They don't have any powers."

"That's right. What will they do if an army from another kingdom tries to attack them? Without magic they won't be able to defend themselves. The people rely on their rulers to protect them. One day Father and I won't be here and it will be up to you to protect your people, Owen. That's why you need to master your art. It's up to you to keep Doria safe. If your people are in danger and you can't save them, it will be your fault."

Mother kneels so that her eyes are level with Owen's and smooths her hands up and down over his arms.

"Do you understand why this is so important?"

She's looking at him with imploring brown eyes. Her hair, a very deep black, is held in a long braid over her shoulder without a single stray strand. She is poised and elegant, everything a proper ruler should be. But there are wrinkles around her eyes and mouth- she'll be old soon, and then Owen will have to take care of her and an entire kingdom.

Owen nods.

"Good," Mother says, "You see, it's more than just turning water into wine. This is about your ability to become king one day."

The weight of Mother's words sinks through Owen to lodge in the pit of his stomach.

"I'm sorry," he trembles, "I'll try harder, I really will."

"Oh," Mother tuts and wipes away his tears with her thumbs. "I know you will, baby."

Owen's eyes flutter shut and he wavers where he stands. He's exhausted. The discovery of the man in the dungeon had wound him up more than he'd ever been. They'd played for hours, and the man had looked so delighted to play the game that Owen hadn't wanted to leave. The stone and cobwebs were a blank canvas that Owen could splash and fill with the colors of his own imagination, and the excitement left him tired by the time he'd realized he was late to his lesson with Mother.

His head still ached.

"We'll try again tomorrow," Mother says, "You will get it, won't you?"

Owen isn't sure he will, but he nods anyway.

"Do you promise?"

Owen swallows.

"I promise, Mother."

"Good. Now run along, go play until suppertime. I think Mara and Duncan have some lovely worms for you to play with."

Owen nods and smiles at Mother's loveliness.

"Just don't get your tunic dirty." Mother ruffles Owen's hair and pushes him away. Owen grins bashfully and reaches up to smooth it down again.

Mother shuts the door behind him and Owen stares at the smooth wood for a moment, thinking of the people who built it, who built the entire castle, the people who depend on him.

He sets the thought aside to think about for another day. It's too big for his aching head to take on. Maybe he'll tell the man in the dungeons about it tomorrow.

He runs off to go find his friends.


	4. Chapter Three

On watery days like today Owen usually likes to get Mara and Duncan and the others and go down to the lake in the woods. It's more of a pond than a lake, but Owen likes to call it a lake so he can pretend there are vast underwater kingdoms, because no one ever heard of vast kingdoms in a pond –– unless it's a Sidh kingdom which Mara likes to pretend, but Owen is the prince and Mara isn't, so a lake it is.

They plunge into the water and come splashing up into the rain to watch the surface dance and pop all around them. Owen pretends his magic is doing it.

He would have liked to bring his friends inside the castle so they could all play hide and seek in the many rooms and corridors– Owen knows of a particularly good hiding place underneath the stairs he's itching to try out– but Mother doesn't like having common children in the castle.

"They'll bring in the mud and squalor," she says every time Owen asks her if his friends can come out of the rain just this once, "It isn't their fault they're filthy, but it's not ours either, so there's no reason why we should live in their filth."

"But that's not fair!" Owen protests, and Mother silences him with a glare and tells him to blame the bigger kingdoms, because it's their fault the people of Doria are poor and can't wash themselves.

Today winter air is riding in fast on the late autumn winds, and the rain is chilled into freezing streaks through the air. Mara and Duncan will be inside by their fires today, too poor to risk getting ill.

Owen doesn't want to play with them today anyway. He stayed up late after the sun went down last night wondering about his new friend in the dungeons, that mystery he was determined to discover – who he was, why he was there, what he'd done to lose his tongue. Owen's sure the man has wonderful stories to tell, if only he could talk.

He'd looked so sad yesterday when he tried to tell Owen his name. Mm, Mm, Mmmmuh?

Owen shivers. The fire in the fireplace died during the night and now the cold winds are seeping in through the cracks in the windows and cooling the stone. Long ago Mother told the servants not to keep Owen's fire going in the night in the hopes of encouraging his magic to warm the room. So far Owen had managed to warm things as he touched them, but he couldn't yet figure out how to keep them warm when he pulled away.

The man in the dungeons is probably very cold, Owen thinks, so he pads over to this plain wooden cabinet, warming the stone under his footsteps, and pulls out a blanket. He wraps it around himself – if his magic can't warm it, his body heat certainly can – and leaves his chambers without changing from his sleeping clothes.

The castle is quiet as Owen runs through it, except for the rumble of thunder. It's too early, too cold for people to out of their beds. There are people working in the kitchens, of course, but they're too far away in the east wing of the building, so all Owen can hear is the pit pat pit pat of his bare feet slapping the floor.

He slows as he nears Mother's chambers. Her door is opening and someone is emerging, looking up and down as he goes. A hand follows him, touching his arm, and then Mother's head appears. Owen waits just out of sight for the man to leave before he keeps going.

"What are you doing?" Mother frowns at him.

"I was going to play," Owen answers.

"It's so cold out. Is your father coming with you?"

Owen shakes his head.

"Where are you going with that blanket?" Mother asks.

"I was cold."

"Can't you warm yourself?"

"I have," Owen says, and holds out one blanket-covered arm for her to feel. She does, and seems pleased when the blanket feels as though it's been hanging by a blazing fire.

"This is good!" She exclaims, and bends down to kiss the top of his head. "You'll be heating your whole room soon enough."

Owen nods.

"I don't want you going outside today," Mother says, "You'll get ill in that rain. Alright?"

Owen nods again.

"Good. Go along, and I don't want you to be late for your lesson like you were yesterday."

"Yes Mother," Owen replies.

He runs off, still clutching the blanket around him.

The man is huddled in the corner of his cell when Owen arrives, tracing idle circles over the surface of Owen's ball. He looks up with hopeful eyes when the light from the torch falls on him.

"Good morning!" Owen says cheerfully, "Did you miss me?"

The man nods, and Owen grins. The distant clap of thunder sounds, muffled by the layers and layers of thick stone separating the dungeon from the outside.

"I brought you a blanket," he says, and unwraps the blanket from around himself to stuff it through the bars. "I tried to warm it up as much as I could. I expect you must get cold here. 'Specially with winter coming. Mother won't let me keep a fire in my room unless I light it myself, only I have to use my magic to do it."

The man pauses in the middle of placing the blanket around his own shoulders. He cocks his head at Owen and blinks.

"I don't have very much magic," Owen explains sheepishly, "I can do little stuff, but nothing big like Mother wants."

Now cocooned in the blanket, the man raises one eyebrow and creeps forward on his knees, sticking out one hand and wiggling his fingers. The chains jingle softly.

"I was born with the magic. Mother says I was given my powers to rule Doria, except she doesn't have any powers and she does an alright job. Father doesn't do much," he adds, "He sleeps most of the time and lets Mother do the work. I don't think he cares about being king too much. Mother gets mad at him for it, and she said when I'm king I'm going to have to work extra hard to bring Doria back to greatness after Father let it down."

Owen frowns.

"I don't know how I'm 'sposed to do that. Doria already seems pretty great to me. You should see it."

The man is watching him with something close to rapture on his dirty face. Owen wonders if he can even see through the white film that covers his eyes, but the man is watching so intently that he must be able to see a little bit. Those faded blue eyes are fixed on Owen's face with such ferocity as though Owen is the most important thing in the world.

"Did you grow up here?" Owen asks, "Have you seen Doria at all? There's a great forest just outside of the city where me and Mara and Duncan go- those are my friends, but they're peasants so they're not allowed in the castle. But we can go anywhere we want as long as it's outside. Yesterday we went digging for worms, after my magic lesson with Mother."

Owen grins excitedly at the memory. His head still hurt from the strain of trying to turn water into wine, and he was still reeling from Mother's disappointment at his failure. He'd wiped his tears by the time he caught up with his friends, and they'd shown him how fat and long the worms were and how they were going to take them into the forest and create a little worm village.

"Mara found the biggest worm," Owen tells the man, "It was this long! So her worm got to be chief of the worm village, but she was nice to the other worms so it was alright. We made them little houses, and I dug them a pool for them to go swimming in, even though it was a little cold. I warmed it up for them," he says proudly, "except I had to keep my finger in it."

The man's eyes are shining, but it isn't the sad kind of shine that Owen saw in him yesterday. He looks happy, huddled in the blanket and listening to Owen tell him all about his game. He sticks his hand out and wiggles his fingers again, smiling.

"You wanna see?" Owen asks, and when the man nods vigorously Owen sticks out his hand and points it to the little pile of rat bones in the corner of the cell. At his command, the little white pieces start to move, one after the other, until they're lying on the floor in the form of a smiling face, two dots and a line.

The man's face breaks out into a wide grin and he claps his hands together fast. The loud sound echoes all around the dungeon.

"Small stuff," Owen shrugs, "Mother wants me to do better."

The man just nods and grins and looks strangely happy.

The thought of his mother makes Owen falter. He has another lesson today, and Mother said today he will have to try harder. She was so disappointed yesterday, what will she do when she sees that Owen still can't do what she wants? She will be angry and sad and it will all be Owen's fault.

The man must see that Owen's smile is falling, because he reaches through the bars to pat Owen's hand in comfort.

Owen looks up. The man is smiling at him.

"Let's play a game," Owen says suddenly, "I am the dragon who rules this land and I have captured you!"

With that he banishes his anxious thoughts from his mind and climbs up the horizontal bars of the cell so that he towers over the man on the floor. He twists his face into a scowl.

"Raaargh!" He roars, "Tremble before me!"

The man obliges and places his hands above his head in surrender.

"You dare come into my castle which was forged from my mighty breath to…" It's then that Owen notices a ring on the finger of the man's left hand, reflecting the torchlight so that it glowed. "...steal my treasure! How dare you steal my treasure? I will take it back!"

He leaps back down to the ground and sticks his hand through the bars to get to the ring.

"Give it back! Rarrgh! Rargh-"

But the man, realizing what Owen is reaching for, suddenly shrinks back, holding his hands to his chest and shaking his head frantically.

"The treasure is rightfully mine! Rarrgh!"

If possible, the man shakes his head harder. He isn't smiling anymore. Suddenly there's an uncomfortable feeling in the air while the man, distraught, clutches his ringed finger to his chest and shakes his head back and forth, back and forth.

Owen doesn't know what to do. Just as they start their game, the man suddenly doesn't want to play when he was happy just moments ago.

"Did I upset you?" Owen asks, "I'm sorry. It's just a ring."

The man whimpers.

"May I look at it? I won't take it."

The man hesitates, then extends his left hand for Owen to examine, watching him carefully all the while.

The ring is silver fringed with gold, decorated with intricate shapes that might once have been swirling words or vines, but which time has worn down to a series of jumbled lines half smoothed into the surface. It was once nice, Owen can tell, and would still be worth quite a lot of money for the silver and gold.

"It's a very nice ring," Owen tells the man, because the man is looking at him so hard now and Owen can see the way the hand twitches with the desire to jerk back to keep the ring safe and hidden.

"Is it a wedding ring?" Owen asks, because this isn't like the rough warrior rings he's seen other men wear as trophies from their battles.

The man nods.

"Oh."

A look of incredible grief settles over the man's face and Owen doesn't quite know how to respond to it. Something of a greater magnitude pokes at him as Owen realizes how sad this man must be, to be lost from this love of his and trapped down in a dark cell for so many years.

"What happened to them?" There's no corpse in the cell with the man, no indication that they might have been here together.

The man shakes his head.

"I'm sorry."

The man holds his hand against his chest and sighs. With his other hand he rubs the ring over and over, pressing and twisting it around and around and around. That must be how the ring lost its detail, Owen thinks. He imagines the man sitting here in the dark, all alone, wishing for his beloved and caressing the only object left that connects them. It's like the stories Mother tells him before she sends him to bed of maidens trapped in towers while their love must go on a quest to rescue them, how the pain of being apart is so great that it breaks their hearts.

"I'm sure you'll be with them soon," Owen says awkwardly, unsure of how to behave because the man is hanging his head and looking miserable. "They'll come for you soon enough. That's how it goes in the stories. The prince quests all across the land and slays every beast in his path to find his love. It will happen, you'll see."

Owen isn't very convincing, but the man gives him a watery smile anyway.

Through the stone walls, they hear the sound of thunder.

"Come on," Owen says, eager to change the subject, "Let's play a different game before I have to go to my lesson."

So they play, and Owen is feeling energetic and happy by the time he has to leave. Mother frowns and asks him where he's been all morning, and Owen's skin crawls just a little bit at having to lie directly to her face. But Mother accepts his story of being at the library and sits him down at the table and places a goblet of water in front of him.

The same icy rain and thunder is raging the next day, so Owen goes down to the dungeons again. The rain lasts for days, and by the time its lightened enough for Owen to go outside with Mara and Duncan he's developed a habit. Each morning he will run downstairs to see the man in the dungeon until it's time for his lesson with Mother, and then he will go and play with his peasant friends.

It's a nice routine. Owen likes spending time with the man in the dungeons, even if the man can't talk or leave his cell. As the brutal winter keeps Doria locked in her icy grasp, and keeps Owen trapped inside the castle, it's great fun to have a friend to play with to distract him from the cold. The man plays whatever game Owen wants to play and doesn't complain when Owen is the leader every time. He participates with enthusiasm for each make-believe scenario Owen comes up with and somehow they work out a way to play even when they can't cross the bars. One day Owen brings down a game of chess, because Father just taught him how to play and he thinks the man in the dungeons would like it. They unroll the sheepskin board on the floor just outside of the cell and sit cross legged on either side of it and play until Owen has to leave.

Owen brings other games, and he also brings the man things he thinks he might need: food and a pillow and a candle for light for when Owen can't be there with his torch. As months go by the man's cell becomes littered with objects, then cluttered, then cramped, but the man refuses Owen's offers to take some of the unnecessary things back.

The man does a strange thing sometimes. When they're not playing chess or make-believe, Owen will sit with his back resting against the opposite wall and talk to the man about his life in the castle, about his lessons with Mother and his games with Mara and Duncan and how beautiful Doria is, or he will tell the man a story that he makes up on the spot about mighty beasts and valiant knights and strong kings. In the middle of talking Owen will look up to see the man listening and looking so softly at Owen with a gentleness Owen has never seen before directed at him. The man will see Owen looking, and then he'll do the strange thing: he will pat his chest over his heart and then point at Owen, a gesture Owen is clueless to interpret.

"How did you stay sane down here all these years?" Owen asks the man one day, "If you were just here in the dark all alone."

The man can't answer, but he pats his chest and then points at Owen, and then does it again, but Owen doesn't understand.

Time goes by.

Owen goes to the dungeons every day and never tells anyone, not even Mara or Duncan, for fear that word will get back to Mother. Besides, he wants this to remain his secret, his friend that is all his and nobody else's to steal.

At Yule Owen gives the man a wood carving of a dragon that Owen spent a whole week making. It's a shabby, misshapen lump of a thing, but the man cradles it like it's the most precious gift he's ever received. When the world thaws and spring begins to bloom, Owen brings the man a flower and describes the way the birds are singing again and the way the air glitters with water melting from the rooftops and shining in the sun. He's ecstatic when he shows the man the crossbow Father gives him for his eighth birthday, and taken aback when the man presents a tiny figure of a dog crudely made from the wax of the candle.

Owen tells the man about his Mother, and when he does the man listens with a solemn gaze. Owen tells him about how he doesn't think he will ever be as powerful as Mother wants him to be, and how sad it makes her and how he should try to be a better son to her, really, because only a horrible son would not try their absolute best to please their mothers.

It's the middle of the next winter when Owen enters the man's cell for the first time.

Mother is upset with Owen again. He's failed another lesson, this time trying to kill a little bird mother has put in a cage for him.

"Kill it, but don't touch it," Mother tells him, "If you do it right the thing won't feel any pain, it will just go to sleep and not wake up again. You can do that, can't you Owen?"

The little bird is looking at him inside the little cage, staring at Owen with two innocent black eyes.

"But Mother, the bird hasn't done anything wrong."

"It's only a bird," Mother says harshly, "There are plenty of other birds. Don't be so sensitive. It will be your downfall one day."

The bird has gray feathers that look so soft, carried by delicate legs that look like they would snap at the lightest touch.

"What will you do when there is an enemy soldier trying to kill you? Will you refuse to kill them too?" Mother asks, "No, Owen, you must know how to kill with your mind so that your body cannot fail you."

Her hand falls on his shoulder and grips it painfully tight.

"Kill it," she commands with a rough shake to his shoulder, so Owen swallows his protests and stares at the little bird.

He's never been asked to kill anything before, at least not like this. He's squashed bugs and things that crawl in his chambers and the dungeons, but Mother has never made him kill like this.

"You will have to kill entire armies one day," Mother tells him, her voice like waves against a hard rock cliff in Owen's ear.

Owen tries. He looks at the bird and tries not to look at its eyes, the way it shifts all around the cage like it knows what's about to happen to it. Fear and darkness rise up inside of Owen to rattle against his bones, pushing and bursting out, out, and Owen tries to channel it towards the little bird to somehow end its life.

It will be painless if he does it right, he thinks, and he tries. His head starts to pound.

The bird's cage isn't so much as rattling.

"Focus, Owen, all of Doria is depending on you!"

Owen's head is filled with knives and white-hot coals, burning him up. He wants to take off his head and throw it far away to stop the pain of it, but it's eating him up, and the bird is looking at him.

He pushes with his mind against the bird. Nothing happens. He pushes again. And again. His head throbs, he's going to explode, he's going to die, not the bird. He stares so hard he thinks his nose starts to bleed.

"I can't do it, Mother!" He cries.

"You will do it!"

"I can't!"

"You will!"

And then there's another pain, and another, and Owen realizes that Mother has struck him twice across the face.

"Mother!" He screams.

"Shut up!" Mother screams back, "and kill the bird!"

"I can't! I won't! I can't!"

Mother hits him again.

"No!" Owen screams, and screams and screams because there's so much pain in his head and his face and all over his skin, and even in his heart because Mother is angry with him now because he is a bad little boy.

Mother grabs him by the arms and hauls him out of his chair to stand before her and shakes him hard.

"All of Doria rests on you, don't you see that?" She screeches, "Look at me!"

But Owen has screwed his eyes shut to keep the tears from falling, because he's sure now that if she sees him cry it will only make her angrier. He doesn't want to look at her, he doesn't want to see her wild, angry face.

"God damn it, Owen!"

It becomes too much. Owen wrenches himself free from Mother's grasp and flees from the room. He wants to grab the cage with the little bird to take with him, but he doesn't have time. So he runs, and as he runs he can hear Mother screaming after him.

He pushes people out of his way who stare at the crying little prince, red faced and sobbing and doubled over because he wants to clutch at his head for the pain in it.

He doesn't bother with a torch when he rushes down the stairs to the dungeons. There's a soft light from the candle in the man's cell, and Owen runs towards it.

Immediately the man is reaching for the bars at the sound of Owen's sobs. He looks alarmed, his eyes wide and worried, and he makes a gesture as if to reach towards Owen to comfort him.

"M-Mother…" Owen sobs, but he can't even say the rest of it, the pain is too much and he's crying too hard. "My head," he whimpers instead, "it hurts."

He almost collapses there on the floor of the dungeon corridor with the man staring worriedly at him, but then he notices the latch on the bars.

It's rusted over and stuck fast, and Owen doesn't have the key to it. He pulls and pushes, and he cries out in frustration when it won't give. He roars and sends out a burst of magic, and then there's a groan and then the cell is unlocked.

The man is frozen. Through the pain in Owen's head and the sobs wracking his body, Owen doesn't realize what he's just done. He only pushes at the bars until they open enough for him to throw himself inside and into the man's arms.

Immediately the man encircles him with his arms and lets Owen cry into his chest. He squeezes a little too tightly, but Owen doesn't care, just burrows into the warmth and cries and cries.

The man strokes Owen's hair and presses his own face into it to rock them back and forth, hugging Owen tightly all the while. He doesn't let go when Owen's sobs quiet into whimpers, then silence, and the position must be uncomfortable but the man refuses to let go, hugging and petting until Owen falls asleep.

Later on, Owen will wonder why the man held into him so tightly that day. For now it's just comfort he seeks.

Upstairs, where Owen cannot see, Lady Beatrix is throwing the cage with the bird against the wall in a fury. It lands on the ground with a satisfying crash, but it isn't enough to sooth the rage in her, the absolute fury and frustration of seeing all of her hopes and plans fail.

That's when a knight knocks and enters her chambers, looking nervous about the crashing sound he just heard, but bravely entering all the same. Lady Beatrix shouts for him to leave, but the knight says he has come to inform her that there has been trouble in the East, serious trouble.

Lady Beatrix stares for a moment, blinking, as the meaning of the words settle in. The explosion of her fury snaps back into her mind and suddenly she realizes, with such horrifying clarity that she needs to sit down, that everything she's worked might now crumble around her.


	5. Chapter Four

In Lady Beatrix's chambers, Sir Barbel stands at attention with his back to the door. Lady Beatrix can feel his nervous eyes on her and knows that he's itching to speak but does not dare. He can see the way her jaw sets and her hands tremble from keeping her rage at bay.

She straightens her back, raises her head to stare ahead at the wall opposite her. There's a window there framed with curtains that overlooks the higher market. She often places Owen in front of it because all of Doria can be seen from there, curtained in golden sunlight or blanketed in white snow. From that high up nobody can see the gaunt faces of the people, their tattered clothes, their prominent ribs. There are just thatched roofs and trees and sky. There isn't a better view in all of Doria.

The golden light is slicing through the window now in long lines that reach just to the end of the table where Lady Beatrix sits. She used to tell Owen that his magic was from the sun because it was the same color that flashed in his eyes when he did it. She doesn't say that anymore, but sometimes she still finds Owen in the field on sunny days, face raised and palms up to absorb the rays of light.

"Lord Henry will be here soon," Sir Barbel says from his spot at the door.

"Why? He'll only be mad he was woken and he'll sleep through the discussion."

"He's still the king, my lady."

Beatrix scoffs.

Sir Barbel says nothing, and the room is silent for a moment until the door opens without a knock and Beatrix's husband stumbles in, blinking and wrapped up in a cloak.

"Husband," Beatrix greets, tight-lipped, "Good of you to come. Close the door."

"What's going on?" Henry asks as he walks past Sir Barbel and lets the door fall shut behind him. Beatrix watches him with a frown as he rubs a fist over his bloodshot eyes and falls into a chair at the table, stifling a yawn. He kicks his legs out in front of him, folds his hands over his stomach, and blinks up at Sir Barbel.

"Trouble in the East," Sir Barbel answers, "It's the Saxons, lord. They've had no luck conquering England so they have set their sights elsewhere. They've already conquered Denmark and Burgundy-"

"They're already as far as that?" Beatrix interrupts.

"Yes, lady," Barbel says, "It's only a matter of time before they reach Frankia."

"How long?"

"They will need time to recuperate their army, but once they begin to march it's only a matter of a month."

Beatrix curses. If the Burgundy and Frankia fall, then little Doria, snug between the two kingdoms, will be completely surrounded by Saxon land and vulnerable to their advantage.

It would take weeks to gather all the able men from the corners of Doria, and even then the army would be far too small to have victory over the Saxon army that's thousands of men strong.

"I'll need to dust off my armor, I suppose," Henry says, "We'll show the bastards."

"Our army is no more than three hundred men," Beatrix snaps, "That's without the cowards who will run away rather than fight. You'll be slaughtered before the first drums of battle sound."

Henry shrugs.

"We need help, my lady," Barbel says, "Our army cannot stand against an army of that size."

Beatrix closes her eyes.

"Doria has stood for too long to fall now," she says, "We've managed to elude conquer for hundreds of years and we will not fall now."

"The Goths have a sizeable kingdom," Henry suggests, "Perhaps they could help."

"The Saxons have already sent parties into Toulouse," Sir Barbel interjects, "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid they will be of no help."

Henry sighs and looks unbothered. "They've helped us before."

"That was before there were Saxons taking over the entire continent," Beatrix says bitterly, eyes flying open to glare at him, "The Gothic kingdom is too large, their army will be spread too thin as it is defending themselves. They won't spare anyone for us."

"You're quite right, my lady," Sir Barbel says, "There's only one kingdom we can turn to."

"No."

"My lady-"

"No!" Beatrix snaps, "I will not turn to them for anything!"

"Then Doria will fall," Barbel says, "There's no possible way Doria can survive without their aid."

Beatrix closes her eyes again, opens them, clenches her jaw.

"There must be some other way," She insists. But there isn't. She knows that no matter which way they turn, the Saxons will be there with their war axes and battle songs ready to slaughter Doria without difficulty. They've beaten so many kingdoms already into submission, it's only a matter of time before little Doria with her feeble army falls as well.

Unless they ask for help from the one kingdom that has remained unconquered.

"Camelot," She whispers, and the very word frightens her.

"It's the only way." She knows Sir Barbel is right.

Beatrix looks to her husband, who is picking at a piece of lint on the belly of his shirt, already having lost interest in the conversation. He would let Doria fall if it were up to him, too lazy and too cowardly to take his place as leader of the army. What's it to him if the Saxons take Doria? To him, the trees would still be trees and the market would still be the market and he would take no notice if it were filled with Saxons instead of Dorians. He would sleep through the battle and when he woke it would slip his mind that his people would be dead or enslaved.

Beatrix stands and strides over to the window. The sun has begun to set, painting the sky orange and pink and throwing long shadows over the land.

"I love Doria," Beatrix tells Sir Barbel, "I love this land with all my heart. I won't see her fall to the swine. I've risked everything for this land, Sir Barbel, I will die before I see my work fail."

"What about the boy?" Henry pipes up from where he's lounging in his chair, "Haven't you been training him?"

"He's not strong enough," Beatrix says, "I've tried, but he has no power. His father," she spits, "Was supposed to be the most powerful sorcerer to walk the earth, but the boy inherited almost none of it. We might as well get rid of him for all the use he'll be against invaders."

Down in the market there's a woman speaking with a vendor selling sacks of dried apples, probably the last of the season, while a child clings to her skirts, sucking its thumb and looking up at her adoringly. The snow glows around them in the setting sun, making the child look like an angel.

"I risked everything to get Owen here," Beatrix says, watching the woman and the child, "For years Doria has been vulnerable to attack. Owen was my only hope. I've risked so much to get him here, and it's all been for nothing."

There's an uncomfortable pause, broken when Sir Barbel coughs and asks,

"So you will ask Camelot for help, then, my lady?"

"Arthur himself will come here," Beatrix says, "What will happen when he sees Owen?" She turns to face Barbel, hands curled into fists at her sides. "What if he recognizes him? Arthur will want to destroy Doria himself if he finds out we have his son!"

"Perhaps not," Barbel says consolingly, "All you have to do is make sure they spend no time together. Arthur will be too busy preparing for battle to take notice of a small boy."

The intense desire to keep Arthur far away from Owen didn't quell, but Beatrix sagged at Sir Barbel's words. He was right, she knew.

"Send a messenger for Camelot straight away," she said, "In the meantime, Sir Barbel, gather all the men you can and ready them for defense."

Sir Barbel smiled. "This is the right decision, lady."

Beatrix turned away from him. The mother and child in the market were leaving now, the mother with a sack of dried apples slung over her shoulder, the child skipping ahead of her, almost leaving her behind.

"For Doria's sake," Beatrix says, "I hope it is."

Owen wakes to the sound of metal clinking by his ear. There's a hand absently stroking over his hair, making the chains attached to it bump softly together. There are two warm arms securely wrapped around him, holding him tight, and somebody's face is resting against his own head. Owen has never felt this cherished in his life.

His head doesn't hurt anymore. The motion of the hand is soothing against his scalp. Through the haze of wakefulness Owen remembers opening the cell door and falling into the man in the dungeon's arms, how the man hadn't pushed him away but had pulled him close and held him while he hurt. The memory of why he was hurting comes back and makes Owen want to cry all over again, how Mother had been so angry that she had hit him, how he had failed her so badly.

As soon as Owen's sniffling breaks the silence of the cell, the man shifts so that Owen can see his face. He smiles down at Owen, touches his index finger to the tip of Owen's nose to make him smile too.

It's strange, Owen thinks, that this man looks so frightening with his scraggly beard and gnarled skin, yet he's so nice to Owen.

"I'm hiding," Owen tells him, "Mother was angry with me. She wanted me to kill a little bird, but I couldn't do it."

The man's face falls.

"She said I needed to do it so I can kill Doria's enemies one day. She said I have to or else I'm no good to the kingdom."

The man shakes his head and brings up a hand to land on Owen's shoulder. He looks angry, from what Owen can see through the beard, all narrowed eyes and wrinkled brow. His breathing becomes heavier and he starts to shake his head, back and forth, while staring with those hard, angry eyes.

"I want to be a good king," Owen whispers, "I want to be good for my people. I want to help them. Mother says invaders will try to hurt my people and it's my job to protect them. But I can't do that, I don't have the power. They're going to die one day and it will be all my fault." His voice breaks and tears are spilling again. "What should I do?"

The man can't answer, but he wipes Owen's tears away with his thumbs and kisses the top of his head.

"Mother and Father could have another baby," Owen says, "Maybe they will have better powers than me and Mother can teach them to rule. I could be like Father." Although Father doesn't do much, just sleeps most of the day and eats when he's awake. That wouldn't do Doria much good either.

Owen stops talking as the miserable thought that he might be useless settles in. There's a gently glowing light from the candle on the far side of the cell, keeping the horrible darkness of the dungeons at bay. Outside of the cell the light is swallowed up by that blackness. Owen wonders how the man survived for so long without light.

The man rocks Owen back and forth and Owen lets himself be lulled by the motion. The glow of the candle and the sound of the man's breathing is soothing to Owen's mind and he finds himself nearly drifting back to sleep. He could spend the night down here and nobody would notice, he thinks, he's probably been down here for hours and probably nobody has bothered to wonder where he's gone.

But Mother might.

"Oh no," Owen groans, startling himself out of his own sleepiness, "Mother! She's going to be so angry with me!"

He struggles his way out of the man's arms, as the man is reluctant to let him go. Owen clambers to his feet and shakes himself down, brushing away the bits of hay and dirt that have accumulated during his time here so that Mother won't suspect where he's been.

He turns to the man who is watching him, still huddled against the wall with his arms limp now that they're not holding on to anything. When Owen turns to him the man raises his arm to pat his chest and point to Owen.

After a moment's pause where Owen thinks of how kind this strange man is, Owen lifts his own arm to repeat the gesture. A look of the purest delight sets upon the man's face, and Owen grins back at him despite his fearful thoughts of Mother.

"Bye, then," he says, and turns to rush out the door. He makes to close it, but there's a great sound of metal and shuffling that makes him pause.

The man is kneeling at the bars with his hands outstretched to grasp the metal, eyes wide and pleading.

Oh.

Owen slams the door shut with a clang.

"I can't let you out," he says, "I'm sorry."

The man stares.

"I'm sorry!" Owen says again, "If you leave Mother might find you and then she'll know that I let you out and she'll know I was down here! I'm not supposed to be here!"

A whining sound escapes the man's throat, low and sorrowful, and he shakes the bars roughly, once, never taking his eyes from Owen.

"Mother would be angry!" Owen insists, "I can't let you out!"

The man's eyes have turned wild, desperate, and Owen looks into them and thinks of all his years trapped here, far away from light or sound or touch, all alone until Owen came for him. But then he thinks of Mother and how sharply her hands landed on Owen's cheeks when she hit him, how angry she was with him, how much angrier she would be if she knew Owen had disobeyed yet another one of her orders.

"I'm sorry," Owen insists, and shouts it again when the man only looks more stricken, "I'm sorry!"

The man howls, a sound horrifying because of its misery, and it makes Owen back away in fear.

"I'm sorry!" Owen says again, and turns to run away, doing his best to ignore the way the echo of the rattling bars follow him all the way out of the dungeon.


	6. Chapter Five

_Keep completely still,_ Owen thinks to himself, _Like a statue. A witch has turned me into stones and now I can't move. Nothing can break this spell._

"Lift your arms," Mother says.

"I can't," Owen replies, muffled because statue's mouths don't normally move. "I've been turned to stone."

"Is that so?" Mother says with a raised eyebrow.

"A witch did it. She's wicked," Owen tells her.

"To stop you from fidgeting, I bet," Mother says. She grabs hold of Owen's arm and tugs so she can try to wrestle him into his coat. Owen makes his arm go heavy.

"You'll break my arm off!"

"Owen, I don't have time for this."

"I don't want to wear that coat."

"Even statues need to look nice, especially when royalty are coming."

"But we're royalty."

"Our guests, then."

Mother is already dressed, in a rich gown the color of the forest decorated with her best jewelery. Polished brass and wooden bracelets dangle on her wrists, gleaming in the morning sun shining through the window. The silver circlet that Owen has only ever seen a few times in his life sits elegantly on Mother's brow, perched atop her winding braids, black just like Owen's. Except Owen doesn't have braids, that's for ladies. The thought of himself with long hair like Mother's makes him giggle.

"Please, just put the jacket on," Mother says, her eyes turned hard and her voice all sharp like it does when she's losing patience. "The King's messenger said Arthur is less than two hours away, we must be ready to receive him."

"Why do I have to?"

"Because you're the prince of the land Arthur is going to be saving," Mother says, "He'll want to meet the person who will one day rule here. Besides, it's polite. So put the jacket on."

Owen makes his arms go stiff.

"I can't. A witch turned me into a statue and now I can't move."

Mother rolls her eyes.

"You're magic yourself, just turn yourself back into a boy."

"I can't. She's too powerful."

Mother looks at him and for a moment Owen's afraid she might hit him like she did during their lesson a few weeks ago, but she doesn't. Instead she leans forward and gives Owen two kisses, one on each cheek.

"There," she says, pulling away and smoothing Owen's hair back, "Now the spell is broken."

Owen pouts but raises his arms so that Mother can wrestle him into the jacket. Kisses break spells in all the stories.

"I hate this jacket," Owen whines. The sleeves are too stiff and it itches where the buttons are sewn into it.

"You only have to wear it for today," Mother says as she fastens the buttons. They don't even do anything, Owen grumbles in his head. They're just decoration.

"You know," Mother says, "King Arthur is a hero of legend. Did you know he once slayed a giant?"

Owen shakes his head. He's heard of King Arthur's grandness and of his sparkling land of Camelot, but he's never heard this.

Mother nods.

"He had only just become king when he heard that there was a giant in a far-off part of the kingdom. Now Arthur was bored of sitting at court all day, so he decided to go out and fight the giant."

"For fun?"

"Yes, because Arthur loves to fight. His favorite possession is his sword and is always picking fights and going on hunts to see what animals he can kill."

She finishes with the last of the buttons and smooths down the creases in the fabric as she tells the story.

"So he found the giant on top of a mountain where fire burned day and night. Arthur wasn't afraid because he was just as mighty as the giant himself. So when the giant spotted him and came at him with his giant club, Arthur laughed and smote him with his sword."

Owen can picture it: A man surrounded by fire, dark and big, probably with a great beard and scars all over his face. He sounds scary. It makes him shudder to think that this man will be in the castle.

Mother takes Owen's hands in his and looks into his eyes.

"He will keep Doria safe," she says.

Owen frowns. "What if he doesn't like us? What if he joins the Saxons and starts fighting us instead?"

"He won't."

Owen isn't so sure. If King Arthur fights giants for fun then what's to stop him from attacking Doria?

There's a knock on the door.

"My Lady! My Lord!"

"Enter," Mother calls, and Sir Barbel sticks his head into the room.

"King Arthur and his men have arrived."

A small gasp escapes from Mother, and Owen goes rigid with apprehension.

"Already?"

"They're gathering in the courtyard now, Lady."

Mother turns to look very seriously at Owen, still holding onto his hands.

"Darling, listen to me. King Arthur is here to help us but you must keep away from him. He has no children of his own and he might not take kindly to you bothering him all the time, do you understand me?"

Owen nods. He wouldn't want to bother King Arthur anyways, he might get mad.

"Maybe I don't even have to go down and meet him," he says hopefully, "I can just stay here."

Mother shakes her head.

"You've got to greet him just this once, as you are the prince of Doria. But after this I promise you need spend no more time with him than necessary."

Owen smiles, and Mother smiles back.

"Now come on."

She stands and holds on to Owen's hand as they make their way to the courtyard.

There are horses everywhere laden with bags and pulling carts along behind them, with men bustling about around them, checking luggage and talking and looking around at the castle's courtyard.

At the top of the stairs, Owen tightens his grip on Mother's hand and steps closer to her skirts. There are knights everywhere in gleaming mail and armor, much nicer looking than what Doria's knights wear. Some are looking at him with interest, which makes him draw further into Mother's side.

"Don't look so frightened," Father says from Mother's other side, wearing a ceremonial jacket and circlet of his own. "These men are here to help us, after all."

Owen doesn't reply. He looks into the crowd of newcomers, looking for a big, burly, scarred man among the knights. Would Arthur be wearing a crown? Maybe he wears a necklace around his neck made of the bones of all the monsters he's killed. He probable has lots of necklaces like that. Sir Daniel from Mother's court wears a piece of a boar's tusk on his ear, and Owen always thought it was a bit frightening. Arthur will probably have one like it, too. Maybe even covered in dried blood. His hair might be tangled and messy from riding in the woods all the time, and Owen imagines a long deep scar running from the top of his forehead down to the bottom of his chin.

But there's no man like that that Owen can see, only normal looking men in silver mail. Some of them are wearing red capes brighter than autumn apples, with golden dragons sewn into the shoulder.

The crowd parts for a man on a horse, wearing one of those red capes. He stops his horse at the bottom of the stairs and dismounts. He raises his hand in salute, and Mother and Father raise their hands in response.

He climbs the stairs, followed by a knight on either side, one blonde and one dark.

"Greetings, King Henry, Queen Beatrix of Doria."

"Greetings as well, King Arthur."

Owen stares up. This Arthur is nothing like the man he'd imagined. This man has no beard, and his hair is blonde and cut short to his head. There are deep lines around his eyes and mouth, but they're wrinkles, not scars. The morning sun shines all around his head and Owen thinks he looks like the best king he's ever seen.

He's so busy staring that he doesn't realize at first that King Arthur has turned his head and is now looking straight at him.

"This is my son Owen," Mother says, "Say hello, dear."

She squeezes his hand, but Owen is so full of awe that all he can manage is a quiet "Hello."

There's a little crease between King Arthur's eyebrows as he looks at Owen, like there's a riddle in his head that he's trying hard to figure out. "Pleased to meet you, Owen," he says, and he holds out his hand for Owen to shake. Owen stares at it for a second before taking it with the hand that isn't holding on to Mother.

"He's a little shy, you'll forgive him," Mother says. Owen's hand is swallowed up by King Arthur's big one, but his grip is surprisingly gentle.

"I understand completely," Arthur says as he withdraws. His gaze lingers on Owen for a beat longer before returning to Mother and Father. "These are my knights, Sir Leon and Sir Gwaine," he gestures to the blonde and the brunette, who nod when they're acknowledged, "They're two of my best."

"Pleased to meet you."

The man closest to Arthur called Gwaine winks at Owen and grins. Owen gives him a shy smile back. This one looks nice. Maybe he was around when Arthur smote the giant, Owen wonders, so maybe he can tell Owen if Arthur is really as scary as he thought.

"You must come inside," Mother says with a smile, "My servant will show you to your rooms so you can freshen up."

Arthur smiles his thanks and gestures that Mother will lead and he will follow. Owen looks back over his shoulder at Arthur as he walks with Mother back into the castle. The King is walking with his back straight, flanked by his knights, head held high. He isn't looking at Owen at all. He must not like children very much, Owen thinks. He decides he'll try to stay away from him.

There's a tug on Owen's hand.

"You've done all you need to, you can run along and play now," Mother says to him, voice low because King Arthur is walking not too far behind. "Just be sure to take off your nice clothing before you do."

"Yes, Mother," Owen says fervently, grateful to be able to get out of this jacket and away from the Camelot party.

He drops Mother's hand and runs ahead, leaving the rest behind. Quick as he can he has a torch in hand and is zipping down the stairs into the dungeons.

"I'm heeeere !" Owen calls, voice ringing through the stone halls. Immediately there's the familiar rustle of chains, and then Owen is standing in front of the man in the dungeon's cell.

Bright blue eyes greet him from beneath the man's scraggly black beard. He's smiling, Owen can tell, and his eyebrows raise a little when he sees Owen's jacket.

"This is horrible" Owen says, wrestling it off of himself, careful not to break the buttons. "Mother made me wear it because of our royal guests." He makes a face. "I'd rather be down here with you."

The man in the cell smiles at that. It makes Owen feel a twinge of guilt.

"I'm sorry I didn't visit for so long," Owen says. After he'd refused to set the man free Owen hadn't been able to return for all the guilt he felt. The sound of the man's howl wouldn't leave Owen's head. It was the most miserable thing he'd ever heard and Owen did not want to go back and face the man's sadness ever again. He had gone back, eventually, because it was even worse to think about the man all alone in that dungeon. He brought a new candle and some honey bread in apology. Even so, Owen doesn't go down to the dungeons as often as he did before. The frenzy of the preparations for the royal visit are far too interesting for Owen to watch.

The man shrugs and smiles to say he isn't angry.

"I'll be here a while," Owen says, "Mother has guests and I'm not supposed to be around."

Owen sits down cross-legged on the floor, hugging his jacket to his chest so that it won't get dusty. He's run out of things to talk about, so he looks about for inspiration and runs his fingers through his hair, black like Mother's.

"Mother wore her crown today," Owen tells the man, "So did Father and King Arthur. I won't get a crown until I'm of age."

Only Owen doesn't get to finish his sentence because as soon as he said the word Arthur, a loud shriek pierced through the air that certainly didn't come from Owen.

The man is gripping the metal and leaning in so close that the are pulling at his skin as his face squishes between them. His mouth is open and the shriek happens again, from the back of the man's throat: "Aaah!"  
Owen scrambles up in alarm and backs takes a hasty step away, holding the jacket in front of him like a shield.

"What's wrong?"

The man shakes the bars once.

"Aah! Ah? Aaaah!" It sounds like a question this time, but Owen doesn't know what he's asking.

"What's wrong?" Owen asks again. It's a harsh reminder, the way the man is staring, that this man is in the dungeons for a reason. He's mad, probably, or did a bad thing. Owen shouldn't even be here.

"Shh!" Owen shushes when the man starts to yell again, "Someone might hear you!"

The man snaps his jaw shut but keeps his face pressed to the bars, just staring.

The dungeons sound too quiet now.

"What happened?" Owen asks.

"Ah," The man mumbles, almost a whisper this time, "Ah ah."

Owen shakes his head. He doesn't understand. The man looks at him, something intense and bright shining from behind the man's gaze, until it looks like his eyes are going to pop right out of his skull.

"Ahhhh."

"What?"

The man releases one hand from around the bars and thumps his chest twice, hard, and jabs his finger in Owen's direction.

Owen stares back as the man thumps his chest twice more and points again, then again, thump thump point, thump thump point.

"Aaaaaah!"

"What did I say?" Owen asks, and tries to think what he might have said to make this man upset. Mother's circlet? King Arthur?

The man's movements are rapid and jerky and hard, and the thumping gets louder and louder the longer Owen watches, thump thump, thump thump, thump thump.

Owen doesn't know what to do. Should he try to stop the man? Should he say something? Should he say sorry?

Instead Owen turns and runs. The man howls after him, like Owen thought he would, but he keeps running until he's up out of the dungeons and racing down the hall.

After a while he slows to a walk, his breath harsh in his ears and the horrible scream from the man repeating in his head. Maybe Owen should stop spending time with the man, because it seems to be making him more and more upset these days. Maybe Owen ruined their friendship the day he opened the cell door and locked it again, maybe that triggered the man's madness.

There's a door standing ajar up ahead that allows for a glimpse inside of the council rooms. Owen's been spending more and more time there lately as Mother says it's far time he started to learn the ways of the court. She would have put him in there much sooner, Mother said, but she was so busy running the kingdom that she didn't have time to make sure Owen attended court. He won't have to sit in court much the next few weeks, much to Owen's relief, because it's so boring in there.

Still, Owen can hear Mother's voice drifting from the room sounding soft, and sympathetic.

"...Understand completely, it must be hard for you."

There's an answering grunt, and when Owen peeks his head through the door he sees it's Arthur, lips pressed into a line and his eyes on the table before him.

"Not like I was left to wallow," he says, "I had a kingdom to run."

"Of course," Mother says. "And you've done a wonderful job, from what I've heard. The story of Badon is still a favorite to tell throughout the kingdom. Your name carries a legend."

"You're too kind."

"And I assure you, if it makes you uncomfortable- oh, Owen, what are you doing here?"

A half dozen pairs of eyes snap up to look at Owen standing meekly in the doorway. Arthur's gaze immediately hardens at the sight of him.

"Sorry," Owen half-whispers, and ducks out of the room before Mother can scold him for eavesdropping. He closes the door behind him so they know he won't be coming back.

He's still holding onto his jacket. His grip tightened when the man in the dungeon started yelling and now there are wrinkles. He smoothes them out a bit. Maybe he can find a seamstress to help him with it. Later, though.

He wanders off in the direction of his room. He'll put the jacket away, then maybe he'll go off to find Mara and Duncan. At least they'll play with him.

Or maybe he won't. Maybe he'll just go to his chambers and practice magic for a bit. Mother said they won't be having lessons these weeks while battle strategies are being discussed. She'd be pleased if Owen made progress all on his own.

There are no servants in his room when Owen enters it. The light is hurting his eyes, so he crosses the floor to close the curtains. He left the door open so he crosses the floor again to close it.

The dimness of the closed curtains makes it seem colder, so Owen crawls into his bed underneath his covers and curls up and tries to keep himself warm.


	7. Chapter Six

It's a bright cloudless day with sunlight streaming over every corner of Doria, yet cool autumn breezes are blowing in from the north and chilling the air. Owen shivers and pulls his cloak tighter around himself. Long ago the trees turned from green into shades of red and orange and gold, and now they're breaking free from their branches and drifting to the ground. Owen can flick his hands at them so that they'll rise into the air on a burst of power and flutter gently back down. It makes Mara and Duncan laugh.

"Do it again!" Mara says gleefully, and giggles as Owen makes the leaves dance around her. There's a stick in her hand that she waves, pretending it's herself casting the magic. Owen grins.

"I bet I can bury you in leaves," he says.

"You wouldn't," Mara replies, "There are bugs and worms in there!"

"You wouldn't mind," Says Duncan, lounging against the trunk of a tree, "Your house is full of bugs and worms anyway."

"It is not," Mara says, "My house is just as clean as the castle. Mother said the King could stay there."

"Only because he'd be too busy sleeping to notice," Owen says, laughing.

Mara pouts.

"He wouldn't stay at my house," Duncan says. He brushes his unruly brown hair out of his face, only to have it fall back across his eyes. "It's too full of smoke and stuff from Father's smith."

Another gust of cold wind sweeps through the woods around them, making the leaves jump higher and blow their hair out of their faces. The three of them shiver. Owen is wearing his fur-lined cloak, but Mara and Duncan are wearing dirty wool tunics with holes showing in most places. Mara is frowning at one of those holes now, one of the bigger ones, as it lets in the cold.

"I want to go inside," she declares.

"Me too," Duncan says, "It's cold."

"But we only just got here," Owen protests, "Can't you stay a little longer?"

"It's freezing," Duncan replies, "Besides, don't you have a magic lesson?"

Owen shakes his head.

"She's too busy with King Arthur," he says glumly. Mother, Father, Arthur, and the rest of the Camelot party have been spending every day shut inside the council chambers, so Owen has spent the last week largely ignored by the castle inhabitants.

"Please stay and play a while longer," he says, looking between his friends.

Another gust blows, and an orange leaf that had been in Mara's hair is plucked up and carried away by the wind.

"Sorry Owen," she says, "It's too cold."

Owen sighs.

"We can play tomorrow." Duncan gets up and brushes the dirt and dead grass from his clothing.

"But what am I supposed to do for the rest of the day?"

Mara grimaces apologetically at him and shrugs her shoulders.

"See ya, Owen."

With their arms wrapped around themselves, Mara and Duncan hurry off back towards the houses, gusts of wind and leaves following them out of the woods.

"Bye," Owen says, belatedly, watching them go. He kicks at a stone.

It's cold, yes, but Owen's cloak keeps the wind from touching his skin, so he's quite warm as he stands under the trees just at the edge of the woods, watching his friends disappear into their houses. Mara's mother is outside taking down laundry from a clothesline as it snaps in the wind, and she greet her daughter with a bright smile.

Owen sighs and begins to walk towards the castle, going the long way around the houses so he'll end up at the northern side of the castle, where there are gardens that might hold something that Owen could use to entertain himself. The flowers are all dead by now, but he could always dig up the roots for worms, or look for interesting looking rocks.

He doesn't want to go to the dungeons. Since his last visit he's been afraid to go back, in case the man in the cell starts to yell at him again. Owen had never seen him quite so angry, not even when he'd shown that he could set the man free and chose not to. That guilt and the fear of the man's raving shouts are enough to make his stomach churn. The man in the dungeons was his friend, Owen thought, still is, but he doesn't want to think of his friend that way. He wants his friend to be the man that played pretend with him and held him when he cried, not this frightening thing with bloodshot eyes and spittle flying from his mouth.

As Owen approaches the gardens he sees a figure leaning against the arcade, half obscured by shadow. He's from Camelot, judging by the quality of his chain mail, but Owen can't tell who it is until he's already at the arcade himself. When he gets close enough to see the knight's face, he stops short.

It's King Arthur, hands clasped in front of him and staring out across the dead garden.

As soon as Owen realizes who he's looking at he wants to turn around, but the sound of his boots scuffing on the stone causes Arthur to snap his head around.

Their eyes meet for a second in which Owen tries to figure out Arthur's expression. There's a crease in his brow and a slight frown in his lips, but his eyes don't have the kind of coldness that Owen was expecting. Instead there's interest there, as though Owen is a bear who ran into the garden and Arthur hasn't decided how to react. It makes Owen feel out of place, under the King of Camelot's gaze, even though it should be Arthur who is out of place here in Doria.

Arthur, King of Camelot, slayer of giants, doesn't take his eyes off of Owen, and he suddenly feels fear prickling along his neck like the legs of spiders, so he averts his own gaze to the ground and makes to leave.

He hasn't even turned around when Arthur calls out to him.

"Prince Owen."

Owen snaps his eyes to meet Arthur's again.

"Yes, sir?"

Arthur opens his mouth, then pauses, as though he has no idea what he wants to say. Then, inexplicably, he smiles.

"I wanted to say hello," he says, "And apologize to you."

"Apologize?" Owen echoes, confused.

"For our first meeting," Arthur says, "I'm afraid I wasn't a very warm guest towards you that first day." The smile is still on his face, and it makes him look much less like a slayer of giants. Owen wishes that Arthur would smile more often, even if this one looks a little bit forced.

"It had been a long journey from Camelot and I was very tired."

"It's no problem, my lord," Owen says politely, "I understand."

"I'm glad."

Silence follows. Arthur looks at Owen and Owen stares back, unsure of what he's supposed to say next. How does one speak to the king of a great kingdom?

"Did you really slay a giant?" Owen blurts out. He can't help himself; Arthur is wearing an elaborate sword strapped to his belt that's probably big enough to slay a mighty giant.

The question startles a laugh out of Arthur.

"A giant? Where did you hear that?"

"Mother told me," Owen says, "She said you went to see the giant on top of a mountain made of fire and smote him with your sword."

Arthur laughs again, tossing his head back. Owen feels his face burn, wondering if he's made a fool of himself, or of Mother.

"Well?" he asks, "Did you?"

"Oh, no," Arthur says, sobering a little, "No, I've never even seen a giant. I don't know that there are any in Camelot."

"Mother said you did."

Arthur shrugged. "Perhaps she heard it from someone else. Bards do like to romanticize things. Or the knights, you should talk to Sir Gwaine sometime-"

"Talk to me about what?"

Both turn at the sound of a new voice belonging to a man in Camelot armor walking towards them. It's one of the two knights who had accompanied Arthur up the steps when they first arrived, the one with the long brown hair who winked at Owen.

Arthur grins.

"Oh nothing. On second thought, Owen, don't talk to this man, he'll tell you nothing but lies."

"Whether you choose to believe what I tell you is none of my business," Sir Gwaine says.

"Come on, in all the years I've known you I haven't heard you tell a word of truth."

"Exaggeration doesn't make me a liar, does it? What do you think, Owen?"

Owen looks between the men looking down at him, unsure of what to do, but they're both smiling at him and it seems genuine, so Owen decides he can let his guard down a bit.

"I think it makes you a prat, sir."

He says it with a smile, but suddenly they both stiffen at his words. Arthur's face freezes, then begins a slow fade, and Owen's mind reels back to wonder what he did wrong.

Sir Gwaine clears his throat and addresses his king.

"Sire, Lady Beatrix asked to see you, she thinks she's found an attack route that will work."

"Of course," Arthur says, "I'll be there straight away, I was only stepping out to get some air anyway. It was good to talk to you, Owen," Arthur says, talking to Owen again, smile back in place, "You seem like a fine lad. Doria's in good hands, I think."

He reaches out a gloved hand to ruffle Owen's hair, leaving Owen perplexed. Arthur gives him a final nod, then one to Sir Gwaine, then heads off in the direction of the council chambers.

"What happened?" Owen asks once Arthur is out of sight.

"Nothing, really," Gwaine replies, "You said something that reminded him of something else, that's all."

"What did I say?"

Gwaine grimaces.

"It doesn't matter, really."

Owen peers down the arches of the arcade at the corner Arthur just turned.

"Doesn't he like children?"

Gwaine doesn't say anything to that. When Owen looks at him, he sees Gwaine studying him in the same way Arthur was, with that crease between the brows.

"He does," Gwaine says finally, "Or, he did, but he mostly avoids them these days."

"Why?"

"Long story."

"Can I hear it?"

"You know, Arthur was right," Gwaine says, "You probably shouldn't listen to me."

"But I want to hear the story!"

Gwaine raises an eyebrow.

"It's not a story for children."

"Tell me the story," Owen says with a pout, then as an afterthought, "please."

"I don't think-"

"Pleeeeeeease?"

"It's not a nice story. I don't think your mother would approve."

Owen draws himself up.

"Mother says I shouldn't turn away from scary things because one day I will have to face even worse things when I'm king."

"Jesus, does she really?"

Owen nods. Both of Gwaine's eyebrows are high up on his head, but Owen stubbornly stares him down until finally the knight sighs.

"It was a while ago," he begins, and Owen breaks out into a victorious grin and settles in to listen. "Eight or nine years, I don't remember. Arthur had only been king for a few years, but things were going pretty well. He was married to a man named Merlin and had a baby named Gareth."

"He was married to a man?" Owen asks. "How did they have a baby?"

"Merlin was a sorcerer, his magic found a way."

"But how-"

"Magic," Gwaine says firmly, "Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, Arthur was married, had a child, and he was happier than anyone had ever seen him."

"So what happened?"

"They were lost," Gwaine says, "One day they went out and never came back."

"Merlin and the baby?"

Gwaine nods.

"Merlin didn't like that the baby was spending so much time inside the castle. He thought babies should spend as much time as possible outside in the sunlight and weather and whatnot, so one day he took little Prince Gareth for a horse ride in the woods without an escort. Arthur had to stay inside to deal with politics."

"They can't have just disappeared," Owen says.

"No, they didn't. They were kidnapped. A peasant saw the whole thing."

"Really?"

"Yes. He was too far away to do anything except shout for help, so by the time we knights arrived they were already gone. Couldn't find them anywhere in the woods, somehow. Must have concealed themselves."

Sir Gwaine's face changed as he told the story, and now his face is set in a grim sort of seriousness, a fierce contrast to the casual ease with which he held himself earlier.

"We still don't know why they did it, if they didn't ask for ransom. Merlin was a peasant and a sorcerer, so maybe someone didn't like that he was on the throne. But we can never know for sure."

"What did Arthur do when he found out?" Owen asks, thinking of the hard-faced King Arthur he'd known and trying to imagine a time when he wasn't always this way. He's only known him for a week, of course, but today is the first time Owen has seen Arthur smile. It seems impossible that there was ever a time when that brief glimpse of a happy man was the way he'd once been.

"He raged," Gwaine says, "Sent out every knight and guard and peasant he came across to search, then hopped on a horse himself. He barely had time to pack himself some food before he was riding off into the woods."

"Did you search?"

"Oh yes," Gwaine nods, "I was one of the first to go looking. Merlin and I had been close friends for a long time, before he and Arthur were even lovers."

"Wow."

"Yeah. He was a good friend to me." Gwaine's eyes have a sad look in them.

"Did you ever find them? Merlin and the baby Gareth?" Owen asks quietly.

There's a short pause.

"No," Gwaine says, "We never found anything. No ransom note, not even any dead bodies.

"Arthur went back to Camelot," Gwaine goes on before Owen has a chance to respond to that, "He knew he couldn't spend forever searching. But he was always out there."

"What does that mean?"

"He was always thinking about his family," Gwaine says, "He'd go out for weeks at a time to search. He'd appoint someone to act as regent in his place while he was gone, but it was never as good as having the king himself. He always had to come back, though, because some of the surrounding kingdoms weren't happy that Camelot knights were entering their land without their permission. Arthur always had to come back or risk war. But he tore apart any land he could get his hands on. When he wasn't searching, he was in the castle thinking of different ways he could track his family down. He was obsessed."

In his mind's eye Owen saw Arthur in some unfamiliar castle, hunched over a desk piled with maps, studying them by candle light with mad, bloodshot eyes. No wonder he looks so tired.

"He never found them," Owen says, because the answer is obvious. Gwaine shakes his head.

"Never. There was never even a trace."

"So what did he do?"

"He had to give up," Gwaine says simply. "It took all of us knights to convince him, but finally he agreed that Merlin and Gareth had probably been killed. Camelot was falling apart without his attention. He had no choice. So he held a funeral and moved on."

"I thought Camelot was the strongest kingdom ever," Owen says. He's heard enough stories about King Arthur and his glittering Camelot to know that much.

"It was, and it is now, but it almost fell to ruin."

"Sir Daniel went to Camelot," Owen tells Gwaine, "He's one of Mother's knights. He went to Camelot once and says it's the most beautiful kingdom he's ever seen except for Doria."

Gwaine smiles, a bit forced.

"It is beautiful there," He says. "It's beautiful here too."

"Will Arthur be able to save us?"

"I think so," Gwaine says. "Arthur knows what he's doing."

Owen is quiet for a moment.

"How old are you, Owen?" Gwaine asks.

"Eight years old," Owen answers. Gwaine nods.

"That's why Arthur avoids you, I think," he says, "You're the same age Prince Gareth would be if he were alive. It's painful for him."

Owen frowns.

"You've got black hair and blue eyes, just like Merlin did," Gwaine points around Owen's face, "Plus you've got big ears."

Owen automatically reaches up to touch his ears.

"They're not that big."

"Not as big as Merlin's were, but still big."

Owen pouts.

"Mother has black hair and blue eyes."

"So she does," Gwaine says. "I'm only saying that you remind Arthur of his family, alright?"

"Alright."

"He doesn't hate you."

Owen shrugs. It certainly didn't seem like Arthur hated him just now, but he thinks that if he were in the same situation he certainly wouldn't like anyone who reminded him so much of his past.

Somewhere a church bell rings, and Gwaine sighs.

"I should be getting back to those meetings. Don't tell anyone I told you this story, or Arthur will have my head on a stick."

"I won't, sir."

Gwaine smiles and ruffles Owen's hair just like Arthur did, then walks away.

Alone again, Owen looks around for something to do. He had come here looking for something to do in the garden, but now, looking at all the dead flowers and grass blowing in the autumn wind, it seems there's nothing to do here. It's bleak and colorless, just dull browns and grays.

For lack of anything interesting to do, Owen heads in the direction of the dungeons. He thinks of King Arthur as he goes.

He feels sorry for him now. If Owen lost his family he's sure he wouldn't be able to cope. Mother is everything to him, and so is Father, even if he sleeps a lot. Then there's Mara and Duncan, who are his family in a sense. Owen hates it when they're not allowed to play together. He can't imagine what he would do if they disappeared from him without a trace.

But perhaps that's what all kings do. All kings suffer losses, Mother has told him before. Owen probably will too. It's the mark of a good king to react well to loss, to pick himself up and put his kingdom before his grief. Otherwise what's the point of him?

When he reaches the bottom of the dungeons he braces himself. He has no idea what he'll find when he reaches the man's cell, from the way he left him a week ago.

"Hello?" Owen calls out tentatively. There's no answering clink of chains this time. "I'm back. I'm sorry I haven't visited." The circle of light from his torch approaches the man's cell, and still there's no sound except for Owen's own footsteps and breathing. There's no candle light, his candle must have run out of wick. Owen should bring him a new one later.

"I don't have any honey cakes for you this time, I'm sorry. I'll bring some next time, if you want."

Owen reaches the cell and holds his torch high to look inside, and gasps at what he sees.

Everything that Owen has given the man over the last year has been destroyed. Pages from books lie strewn about, piled on top of broken pottery that must be the dishes Owen brought him once. Straw covers everything else, even reaching the floor outside of the cell, from inside of the pillow Owen brought him. Nowhere is there an uncluttered spot.

In the center of it all is a hunched back, lit by the light from Owen's torch. It's the man curled up with his arms and legs clutched tightly to himself, quivering as if suffering from a bad dream.

"Um," Owen says, "Are you alright?"

The man doesn't respond.

"Are you alright?" Owen asks again. This time the man twitches once, and again more violently, so much that it makes his chains rattle. In a series of jerky movements he turns himself over to face Owen.

He's got something tightly in his hands, pressed closely to his chest. It's the ball Owen gave him the first day they met.

"What's wrong?" Owen asks, "Why did you break everything?"

The man shudders, coughs, and suddenly his eyes fly open.

Owen jumps back.

The man's eyes aren't the blue Owen is used to. This time there's gold in them, swirling and flickering like a dying candle beneath the white film. They flare up and fade back to blue, until the man gives another violent twitch and they flicker golden again.

It's magic, Owen knows, but how on earth did the man in the dungeon manage to get it? Mother said that Owen is the only person in all of Doria with magic.

There's a groan, and a whimper, accompanied by more twitching and flickering of gold.

"You have magic," Owen whispers.

The man groans miserably in response.

"Is it hurting you?"

The man groans louder at that, so loud Owen has to cover his ears and wonders how nobody else in the castle can hear. It's the kind of sound that Owen's heard coming from the physician's room, when people with diseases that turn their insides to mush have to get a limb cut off. It's a sound of absolute pain.

Owen has no idea what to do.

The man cries out again.

"Your eyes…"

They flicker gold, then fade to blue. The groans fade into whimpers.

"Ah," the man groans, "Ah, uh, Ahhh...uhh…..uh…"

"I don't understand."

"Oweh," the man says, breathy and desperate, "Oweh."

"That's me," Owen says, taking one tentative step forward, "I'm here."

"Oweh."

"Yes?"

The man spasms and clutches his head.

"Ahhhhh!"

"What do you need?" Owen cries. "I can't bring you a physician but...what do you need?"

The man whimpers. He screws his eyes shut and lies still, finally, clutching at his head. The silence is so great that Owen thinks the man might have died.

Then the man lifts one shaking hand off the top of his head, pieces of scraggly hair sticking to it, and reaches it towards Owen. The chain looks heavy around his wrist, thick and sturdy, rusted in places. His fingernails are cracked and bloody and completely torn off in one spot, though Owen is sure his fingersnails were completely intact the last time he was here, if a little dirty.

"What do you need?"

The man whimpers and extends his arm until it's stops just behind the bars separating them. His eyes open. They're blue now, but they're filled with tears, wild and pained, and Owen almost can't bear to look at them.

Owen reaches out his own hand between the bars. The man curls his fingers around Owen's and holds on tight. A shudder runs through him.

"Are you going to be alright?" Owen asks, adjusting his grip to be more comfortable. The man grunts, still panting and shaking, but his eyes are blue again.

"Do you need me to get you anything?" Owen asks in a whisper. The man squeezes Owen's hand harder in response, and Owen gets the message loud and clear: Stay with me.

Owen thinks of King Arthur and his devastation at being left all alone, without even knowing where his family went. At least he had knights and a kingdom to keep him company as he mourned. Whatever happened to this man, Owen thinks, he's had no one ever since.

"I won't leave you," Owen promises.

The man's eyes fall shut. His grip remains locked around Owen's hand. Owen rests his arm on the bars and lets the man clutch at it.

The ball that the man had been clutching rolled away when he clutched at his head, and now it bumps gently against the bottom most bars of the cell. Owen pokes at it with his free hand.

"Want to hear a story?" Owen asks, now that it seems the man has calmed down from whatever fit he was having. The man doesn't respond.

"Mother told me. It's not true, apparently, but it's still a nice story. It's about King Arthur."

The man only lies there and clutches Owen's hand.

"What happened was, Arthur was bored sitting at court all day and wanted to have some fun. So one day he heard about a giant living in a far off land and decided to go and fight with it."

And so Owen tells the story, adding some things like dragons and pretty maidens and a daring voyage across the sea, just to make it more interesting. His voice falls into a rhythm, washing over the cell and echoing around the stone of the dungeons. He tells the story of Arthur and holds the man's hand until he thinks the man has fallen asleep, when his shudders have calmed and his whimpers have quieted. After that, he sits cross-legged on the floor and holds the man's hand.


	8. Chapter Seven

Owen stands on the very tips of his toes, straining to see over the roofs of the village from his vantage point on the parapets. It's cold in the dimming autumn light, but Owen isn't thinking about the chill. He's never seen anything like this, there must be thousands of men in the field, each wearing leather and mail that gleams in the sun. They're too far away for Owen to see who is who, but he imagines all of the Dorian soldiers like Daniel and Mark and Theo getting themselves ready right next to the Camelot knights. Father is probably there right now, and his sword is probably just as mighty as King Arthur's is. Would Father's sword be good enough to slay a giant?

"Exciting, isn't it?" Says a voice, and Owen turns to see Mother coming up behind him, dressed in one of her simpler robes now that the Camelot party aren't in the castle. "That'll be you one day."

"Woah," Owen whispers, looking back out at the assembling army with awe. They had to assemble all the way out in the field because nowhere near the castle was big enough to hold all of the soldiers. A lot of them had been sleeping in the castle or in peasant's houses, but most of them had erected tents in the field and slept there. Now those tents are being collapsed and loaded onto the backs of horses to be set up on the battlefield.

"I think it's time to get a sword made for you," Mother says.

"I thought you said I don't need swords?" Owen asks.

"Your magic might not be enough," Mother sighs, "You can't rely on it. Besides, every prince should know how to fight. King Arthur doesn't have one bit of magic," she nods in the direction of the field, "and tales of his might have spread all across the world. Think about how great you could be, Owen, if you could master both sword and magic. The world could be yours."

"What would I do with it?"

Mother smiles.

"Whatever you like."

Owen smiles back. He likes the sound of that.

Out in the field, the combined armies of Doria and Camelot are forming neat squares of men and beginning to march away. Two banners are suddenly flung into the air, snapping and wobbling until the bearers find their grip. Then the banners unfurl and Owen gasps at the way the the standards catch the light of the sun: Doria's hawk and Camelot's dragon, marching side by side into battle.

"When are they going to be back?" Owen asks.

"Who knows?" Mother answers, "The Saxons are strong, but so is Arthur. It could be over in a day, it could be a matter of weeks."

"Weeks!"

Mother nods.

"Battles are tricky. No matter how much planning and strategy you put into it, it always comes down to which side is better at fighting. We've planned this battle down to every detail and still all that matters is which side is best."

"Arthur is the best."

"But the Saxons have thousands of soldiers where we have hundreds," Mother points out, "We won't know until they get back."

Owen watches the army march away. The banners have already disappeared over the horizon, and now a stream of soldiers march after it. Owen will be a part of that one day, bearing the hawk on his banner and leading his army into battle to defend his kingdom. He will destroy the enemy and he will be made a hero. He'll go down in history, just like Arthur.

"Arthur never really slayed a giant," Owen says.

"What?"

"The giant story you told me," Owen says, "I asked him and he said he's never even seen one."

"Oh," Mother says, "Well, it doesn't matter. What's important is that he defeats the Saxon army. He's done it before. When were you talking to Arthur?"

"A while ago," Owen says, "He's actually quite nice, I think, even if he doesn't want to spend time with me."

"Well, he's not that fond of children. You shouldn't blame him for that."

"But he does like children!" Owen says, "Sir Gwaine told me he does."

Mother is quiet for a moment, so Owen turns his head away from the disappearing army to look at her.

"Mother?"

"Did Sir Gwaine tell you anything else?" she asks carefully.

"Oh yes," Owen says, "He told me about how Arthur used to be married. Did you know he was married to a sorcerer?"

Mother presses her lips into a thin line.

"Is that so?"

Owen nods.

"They had a baby together, even though the sorcerer was a man. Magic can make babies, I guess, Gwaine wouldn't tell me how. But Arthur's husband and the baby were kidnapped. That's why he doesn't like me, because I remind him of his baby."

Mother's frowning very hard, Owen realizes.

"What's wrong?"

"You shouldn't have been talking to that knight," Mother says, "Or to Arthur. I don't want you speaking with them any more, or anyone else from Camelot."

"Why?"  
"They're very busy. When they come back from battle they will be tired. The last thing they will need is you bothering them. Do you understand?"

"But I don't bother them!" Owen protests, "They were nice to me before."

"That was before the battle," Mother says harshly. "Look at those men," she gestures at the last of the army, "They're not going to talk with the Saxons. They are going to fight them. Battlefields are bloody and terrible places, and many soldiers are going to come back wounded or dead. The best thing you can do for them when they get back is to stay out of their way."

"But-"

"That's enough, Owen," Mother says. "When the army returns you are not going to speak to any of the Camelot knights."

There is no trace of lenience in Mother's eyes. She looks at him hard, expression demanding that he obey, so Owen closes his mouth and nods.

"Good," Mother says. "Hopefully they'll be back in Camelot soon so we can forget all of this."

Owen says nothing. It doesn't make sense that he shouldn't talk to anyone from Camelot. They'd been nice to him before, even if Arthur seemed a little scary. But if Mother says he can't then he won't.

The army is gone now, leaving the grass in the field torn apart from hundreds of boots marching over it.

"Will Doria be safe, Mother?" Owen asks.

"We'll see," Mother answers. She too is looking out at the horizon where the army disappeared, lips pursed, arms wrapped tightly around herself. For a moment she seems far away from Owen, with the army or with all the citizens of Doria.

Then she reaches down and places a hand on Owen's shoulder, warm and fond.

"I love you very much, Owen, do you know that?"

"Yes Mother," Owen says, surprised.

"Good. It's important that you know that."

"I do."

Mother's hand tightens its hold.

"I tried very hard to have you," she says, something grim in her voice, "For a long time I believed I was barren. Your father and I thought we wouldn't have an heir. Then we had you, our little miracle." She is still looking out over the field, but her hand is warm and strong on Owen's shoulder as she speaks. "I know that I push you sometimes, but it's because I love you and want to prepare you to take the crown of Doria. It's for your own good."

"I understand."

"You must," Mother says, "I've been hard on you. I've hurt you, but you must understand that I must do it. If Doria is to survive it needs a good ruler, and I will not be here forever. You must know how to rule, Owen, and teaching you requires being hard on you. It's for the sake of all of Doria."

"I know, Mother."

"Whatever happens, remember that I love you with all of my heart."

Owen reaches up to place his hand over hers on his shoulder.

"I love you too, Mother."

Finally Mother looks down at him and smiles.

"Oh, my darling baby," she says, and kneels down to sweep him into a tight hug.

"I love you," Owen says again, hugging her back just as tight. She's warm.

"Now," Mother says, pulling away, "Let's get out of this cold, shall we?"

She takes hold of Owen's hand to lead him inside of the castle.

The army is gone for one week.

During that time things carry on as they did before. Owen resumes his magic lessons with Mother, and they go from breakfast all the way until supper, because Mother wants him to make up for all the time he missed. She takes him up into the towers and drops stones out of the window for Owen to catch, or down into the kitchens and tells him to cook a chicken all on his own.

"Again," Mother snaps the third time Owen lets a rock hit the ground, "Do it again and get it right this time."

When Mother finally lets Owen go at the end of each lesson, he goes holding his head and willing the soreness to go away. It gets worse and worse every time he fails. With each lesson Owen finds himself with less and less energy to play games with Mara and Duncan. Instead of finding them he goes down to the dungeons.

The man in the dungeons always greets Owen with a pat on his chest, which Owen returns. He likes the idea that they have a secret handshake now, like they're becoming friends again after the man kept yelling. He doesn't yell anymore. He also doesn't seem to want to play as much as he used to, but Owen is fine with that. After the magic lessons he is usually too tired to play, so he's content with sitting and playing checkers or chess on the dungeon floor and telling the man about his day. More often than not Owen falls asleep down there, exhausted from his lesson and soothed by the cool dungeon stones and the man's presence.

On one of these days Owen blinks awake to see the man watching him, espression hidden by the wild tangle of his hair and beard.

"How long was I asleep?" Owen asks, yawning and sitting up to stretch. The man shakes his head and shrugs.

"I suppose I should go upstairs. Mother will worry if I'm late for supper." She's been worrying a lot these days, waiting anxiously for messages with updates from the frontier. So far no messenger has come and the progress of the battle has remained a mystery.

"I can bring you back some of my food, if you like. I think cook is making stew."

The man nods, smiling. Owen can't help but smile back, because the man seems so kind when he smiles, not at all like the terrifying madman he'd been. There's something familiar about the man now, something tender and gentle in his eyes when he smiles. Owen had heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that smile after the man woke up after he'd fallen asleep, crying and seizing with some unknown pain. The man had smiled when he woke up and saw that Owen had held his hand through the bars while he slept. He'd sat up and patted his chest and Owen saw that the madman was gone and his friend was back again.

"Alright then," Owen says, "I'll be back as soon as I finish my supper." He gets up to leave, but before he does the man reaches out an arm to grab at Owen's sleeve.

"What?" Owen asks, afraid for a moment that the madman has returned. He isn't wild or screaming, but the smile is gone, replaced by an intensely serious expression that Owen has only seen on Mother's face when she tells him how much Doria depends on him.

Owen watches, confused, as the man reaches behind him with his other arm to pick up something from the shadows. It's a string of wool, probably ripped from one of the blankets Owen brought, tied in a circle. Looped through it is a ring.

"What is that?" Owen gasps, even though he knows what it is. It's the man's wedding ring, the one he had refused to let go of when they'd first met and Owen wanted it to be his treasure. The man holds it up so that it glows orange in the torchlight. He smiles a little and nods, holding it out to Owen through the bars.

"You want me to take it? I can't!" When the man nods. "Why do you want me to have it?"

The man brings the ring to his lips to kiss it, once, then tugs on Owen's sleeve so that he can reach through the bars and place the string of wool around Owen's head.

"What are you doing?"

The man ignores him, tucking the ring underneath the collar of Owen's tunic so that the entire loop of wool is hidden. He pats the now obscured ring with one hand and presses a finger to his mouth with the other. Don't tell.

"Why not?"

The man shakes his head and taps his mouth again. Before Owen can ask 'why?' again, the man gives Owen a tiny shove. Time to go.

Still confused, Owen picks up his torch and walks away, slowly, in case the man calls him to give the ring back. He doesn't, and Owen thinks about the lump of metal resting against his skin all the way up the stairs and out of the dungeons.

Then he forgets all about it, because there are people running all about the castle, frantic, carrying blankets and water skins and baskets full of bandages.

The army has returned.

"Owen!" Someone calls, and Owen freezes when he recognizes Mother's voice. She's rushing at him, agitation in every line of her body, and Owen suddenly thinks oh no she found out I've been in the dungeons she's going to be so mad at me, but then she says, "either go to your room or go somewhere else, just get out of the way," and sweeps past without even noticing that Owen had just emerged from the dungeon staircase.

He lets go of a breath that he didn't realize he was holding, then jumps out of the way of someone rushing past holding a box full of vials and bottles of medicine.

Everywhere servants are heading outside towards the field. Owen runs along with them, weaving between their legs to get ahead.

The field is already a whirl of activity by the time he gets there, servants and soldiers going this way and that, ducking in and out of the hastily erected tents with bandages and medicines and jugs full of water and warmed wine. Horses are whinnying, soldiers are shouting, and there's a weird stench in the air that's either mud or blood.

One soldier is dragged by, supported by a soldier on either side, with a gash in his calf that oozes blood in a trail behind him. It looks infected, green and purple and black in some places. Owen can't help but stare at it.

It's chaos, but there's a certain kind of order to it. Everywhere there's something happening, and Owen is frozen in the middle of it, watching the people go by with their injuries and their medicines. The wounded are taken, groaning, into tents, while the uninjured soldiers take care of the supplies they'd taken on the trip. Owen has only ever heard of injuries like these, because he's never been allowed to see inside of the physician's office whenever there are patients inside.

It's more real than Owen expected and it's like a cold bucket of water thrown over his face. The soldier with the gash in the leg is Dorian, and Owen watches as he's taken inside of a tent. One day Owen will be in charge of that man's injury, all of these soldiers' wounds and lives will be his responsibility. He will be the one to send them into battle.

The picture of the leg sticks in Owen's mind until someone jostles him on their way past, heading towards a tent where quite a lot of people are headed. Owen follows the person in that direction on wobbly legs.

Owen ducks inside the tent flap and stares at what he sees.

King Arthur is lying on a bedroll with his armor piled on the floor next to him. He's shirtless, and even though Owen can't quite see because of all the people bending over him, Owen catches a glimpse of pale, sweaty skin and a smear of blood across his chest. An anxious-looking girl holds an armful of bandages while Doria's court physician tears away the soiled ones bound around Arthur's torso. He throws them carelessly onto the floor where Owen can see they're almost completely colored brown and red with blood.

"What happened?" Owen asks, but nobody answers him, too busy tending to the king. Nobody even notices him.

Owen pushes his way through the small crowd of servants and uninjured Camelot knights who are watching the bedroll.

King Arthur looks dead already. His skin is gray, his hair dark and sticking to his head with sweat. His features, which were so regal before, are now twisted in agony, eyes screwed shut as he clutches at his torso.

"Please hold still, sire," The physician says as Arthur writhes, but Arthur only groans in response.

"Arthur?" Owen exclaims in a panic, because he doesn't know how he's supposed to address a dying king. He doesn't want Arthur to die.

At the sound of Owen's distressed cry, Arthur's eyes open and land weakly on him.

"Gareth…"

"I'm Owen."

Another pained groan escapes from Arthur's lips.

"For God's sake, will somebody get me some wine!" He shouts, and somebody is there to hold a jug to his mouth. It trickles down the sides of Arthur's face, the same dark red as the blood oozing from his stomach. Arthur relaxes as he drinks. When the wine is removed his head lolls back against the bedroll, eyes shut once more. He breathes, harsh and shallow, letting out the occasional whimper as the physician applies salves and medicines to his wound.

Owen's heartbeat thunders in his ears. He wants to run or vomit or both, but he can't seem to move or tear his gaze away from the man on the bedroll in front of him. Arthur's next scream shakes Owen to the bone.

He's still shaking when Arthur's breathing gets harsher and harsher, and there's an odd buzzing in Owen's ears, and suddenly someone is saying his name.

"Owen! I told you to get out of the way!"

Now Mother is here, hair braided down her back, hands grabbing Owen's shoulders and forcing him to turn around. She's furious, Owen can tell, because she grits her teeth and gets up close to Owen's face.

"Get out of here and go back to the castle right now, you will only make things worse!" Then she says to Arthur, "Your Majesty, I apologize, Owen will be leaving."

"No," Arthur breathes, "He can stay."

Mother's jaw snaps shut.

"But sir, you're deeply injured."

Arthur opens his eyes to look at Owen, glassy and somewhat unfocused, like he's looking at Owen and seeing something else entirely.

"If he wants to stay he can stay."

"I want to," Owen says, because Arthur might die and Owen doesn't want to leave him all alone like this.

Arthur gives a weak smile that fades as soon as it appears when the physician starts to apply bandages. He grimaces at the pressure.

"Is he going to be alright?" Owen asks no one in particular.

"Just worry about praying for him," Somebody says.

But Owen doesn't want to pray. He wants to help.

Arthur is biting his lip so hard that blood starts to trickle out of his mouth, and someone gives him more wine.

Owen places a hand on Arthur's bare shoulder. He doesn't know what else to do. Arthur's skin is fiery hot to the touch and sweaty all over.

"Owen, get away from there," Mother says, but Owen doesn't move. Arthur calms as the physician ties off the bandages and sits back.

"He needs rest now," he says tiredly.

"Will he survive?" Someone asks, "We got him back here as soon as possible."

The physician shakes his head.

"The wound isn't infected. It's shallow but it broke a major artery so he's lost quite a bit of blood, but as long as he gets plenty of rest and water he should survive. If he doesn't die by morning it will be a good sign."

Owen flexes his fingers on Arthur's skin. He can't die, not the mighty king of Camelot. Arthur is slipping into unconsciousness now. He stops shuddering and begins to breathe evenly.

Please get better, Owen begs in his mind. You saved Doria, you can't die.

"He's asleep now, you should come away from here," Mother says, voice much more gentle than it was before. "I need to speak with some people here."

"I want to stay here," Owen says stubbornly, and keeps his hand on Arthur's shoulder even as Mother tries to pull him away. "What if he dies, Mother? He can't die!"

"I know, sweetheart."

Owen starts to cry, the tears hot on his cheeks as he watches Arthur lie, weak and dying, on the bedroll.

"Owen," says someone close by, Sir Gwaine kneeling next to him, "Your mother is right. You should go back to the castle."

"No!" Owen shouts, "I want to stay!"

"Owen-"

"No!"

Gwaine sighs and looks up at Mother, who grimaces.

"Alright then," she says, "I'm going to find my husband. Tell me immediately if there is any change."

"Yes, my lady."

There's a rustle of fabric as Mother leaves the tent.

"Just you and me, eh?" Gwaine says, even though there are at least a dozen other people in the tent. Owen doesn't respond.

Next to him, Gwaine sits himself on the ground.

"It's going to be a long night," he says. "Why don't you sit down?"

After a moment's hesitation, Owen lets his hand drop from Arthur's shoulder and lets himself fall on the ground next to Sir Gwaine.

He sits himself cross-legged and settles in to wait for morning to come.


	9. Chapter Eight

A pebble wakes Owen up, digging uncomfortably into his chest as he shifts in his sleep. For a moment Owen can't remember why he's sleeping on the ground. Then he blinks his eyes open and sees a pile of furs and weak morning sunlight filtering through the gaps of a tent, and he remembers the events of yesterday, when people were running frantic with bandages and that King Arthur was badly wounded and that Owen had chosen to stay by his side until morning .

Owen sits up, rubbing his eyes and shivering. He should have gotten a blanket, because it's cold outside in autumn with winter fast approaching. He hugs himself and looks around the tent. There's nobody here besides himself and the king and Sir Gwaine lying sprawled on the ground beside him, mouth hanging open and snoring. He spent the night here too, waiting to see if his king would survive until morning.

Owen sees with a sigh of relief that Arthur did. He's asleep, and his skin is gray, but he's breathing soundly. Oddly, Owen thinks Arthur looks more peaceful like this than he's ever seen him look when he's awake. Asleep there's no crease between Arthur's eyebrows, no ever-present downward pull at his lips. He looks gone to the world.

The air is cold and Owen rubs warmth into his arms, wondering if he should run for a blanket or stay here. As he does, he presses something against his chest. The pebble that woke him up, only now Owen remembers it's not a pebble.

He fishes the ring out of his tunic and pulls the string over his head to hold it in his hands. He'd forgotten all about it in all the excitement of yesterday, and now he peers at it and wonders what on earth he's supposed to do with it.

It looks exactly the same as it had when Owen first saw it, still silver and gold and looking like it was once ornately carved but isn't anymore. The lines and ridges have been rubbed so many times by the lonely man in the dungeon that they have become unrecognizable from the shapes they once were.

Is it a gift? The man seemed so desperate to keep it before. He nearly cried when Owen asked for it that day. Owen is sure he wouldn't just give it away for no reason now. Would he?

Owen turns the ring over and over in his hands, looping the rough string around his fingers, wondering. Whatever it is, the man gave it to Owen for a reason, and though Owen hasn't the faintest idea of what that is, he can tell it's important. He'll give it back, Owen thinks, and say he's sorry for taking it without doing anything with it.

There's a sudden sound in the silence of the tent and Owen hurriedly cups the ring inside of his hand and hides them in his lap.

Arthur is shifting, and a pained look flashes on his face before he opens his eyes. They are unfocused with sleep, but soon he blinks and sees Owen watching him with bated breath.

The crease reappears on Arthur's forehead, as well as the frown. He looks at Owen, and Owen looks back, waiting for Arthur to say something first because he isn't sure what he should say to a king who almost died. But the king looks like he doesn't know what to say either.

"Hello, Owen," Arthur finally croaks, and his voice is soft and vague, like he isn't sure that what he said is the right thing.

"Hello," Owen answers.

"Did you sleep here?" Arthur asks, brow wrinkling even further.

Owen nods. "Mother didn't want me to, but you said I could."

"I did," Arthur says. "Not sure I should have."

"Why?"

"It's freezing out," he says, after a pause, "Besides, you shouldn't have to see all of this. You're too young to witness battle."

"Mother says I need to be prepared for when I go to battle someday," Owen says at once.

Arthur smiles, but it's small and weak and somehow makes him look more sad than happy.

"My father said the same thing to me," He says. He still has that confused lilt in his voice, still as though the words seem foreign in his mouth.

"Really?"

Arthur nods.

"Can't say it didn't help, but it was hard all the same."

"What's battle like?" Owen asks. He looks down at Arthur's torso. The bloody bandages are covered by furs, but Owen knows they're there, nasty as they'd been yesterday. "Mother says that when I grow up I'll have to go to battle all the time. She says that's what a king does, except Father doesn't go to battle very much. Mother says that's why I'll have to fight so much, because he won't do it now."

Arthur sighs, then winces as the action must have sent a jolt of pain through him.

"Battle is awful," he says, "There's nothing but pain and death everywhere."

"Why do you do it then?"

"Because I must. It's my duty as king. It will be your duty too, one day."

Owen thinks of all the people he'd seen, bleeding and screaming for wine to soothe the pain in their wounds.

"It sounds scary."

"It is," Arthur says, "But we rulers have to do it. It's our duty to defend our people, so we have to make these sacrifices in order to keep them safe. If we didn't fight, then enemies would come in and kill the people, or else turn them into slaves. So we fight to save the people we love from that."

"Mother said that," Owen says quietly. "She always says that it's my job to keep my friends safe because they don't have powers to save themselves."

"She's right."

Owen frowns. He tries to imagine Mara and Duncan bleeding and screaming like the wounded soldiers from yesterday, hurting because Owen couldn't save them.

"I don't think I'll be able to save them," Owen whispers, "Mother says I have to use my powers to fight battles except I don't think I have the powers she's talking about."

"Neither did I, when I was your age. It took me years to learn how to really use a sword," Arthur says.

"No," Owen shakes his head, "I don't even know how to sword fight. Mother always said I don't need to know how because I have my powers, but I don't think they work like they should." He looks at Arthur's torso again, and thinks that if King Arthur, who is so famous for his sword fighting skills, can be wounded like this, how can Owen possibly protect Doria with his own feeble abilities?

"What powers?" Arthur questions.

"My magic," Owen says, "I was born with magic and that makes me special, Mother says. She says it proves that I'm destined to be Doria's ruler and protector and I'm gonna make Doria great one day."

"Destined," Arthur repeats, and there's a faraway sound in his voice. "I didn't know you had magic."

"Not very much," Owen confesses, "Mother keeps trying to get me to do things but it never works."

"Like what?"

Owen thinks for a bit.

"She made me kill a bird once."

Arthur's eyebrows shoot up into his hair.

"What?"

"I didn't do it," Owen says, "My magic couldn't do it. She got very mad because she said if I couldn't kill the little bird how will I ever kill Doria's enemies?"

Arthur gapes at him.

"When was this?"

"I don't know. A little while ago." Owen shrugs. "She said I'd get better with practice."

"And have you?"

"No."

"That isn't how magic works," Arthur says, "You're born with the amount of magic you have, no more."

"Mother says if I just keep practicing–"

"She's wrong," Arthur interrupts, and Owen sees with no small trace of alarm that Arthur looks angry now. "You only have what you're born with, pushing you will only be harmful. You're young, you shouldn't be pushed that hard. It's impossible."

Owen looks down and fiddles with the string in his hands.

"It makes my head hurt," he admits.

"Then you should stop," Arthur replies firmly. "Find something that you can do. Learn sword fighting, or archery. Those are skills you can learn."

"I'll have to," Owen says quietly.

"Does your mother have magic, then?" Arthur asks.

"No," Owen says, "I've never met anyone else with magic but me." And the man in the dungeon, Owen thinks, but he seemed more crazed by it than anything else.

Arthur is silent for a while.

"I was married to someone with magic, you know." Again there's that confused voice. "He was a very powerful sorcerer. He could have helped you." His words are wobbling and hoarse.

Owen looks up.

"You mean Merlin?"

Arthur's eyes widen.

"How do you know his name?"

"Sir Gwaine told me," Owen answers, nodding to the snoring knight on the ground next to them.

Arthur relaxes.

"Of course he did."

"I'm very sorry," Owen says, "For what happened to him and your baby."

"Thank you."

"Do you think you'll ever find them again?"

Arthur winces, though whether it's from his wound or the thought of his family Owen can't tell.

"They're dead," Arthur says, "Nobody would kidnap them and hold them for that long without asking for a ransom."

"Maybe they're just lost."

Arthur sighs, and winces again.

"I don't think so."

He looks so sad when he says it that Owen decides to drop the subject. It makes him think of the man in the dungeon, who was married once before he was trapped, proved by the ring Owen is hiding now in his hands. He's all alone from his loved one too, and he always looks unbearably sad.

Arthur shifts on his bedroll, grunting with pain as he does. Owen follows the movement and spots a ring sitting on Arthur's finger that makes Owen pause and stare.

It's silver and gold, criss-crossed with intricate carvings of runes and knots rising and twisting on the metal. It looks almost like the ring that the man in the dungeons gave him, and he holds it up to compare without thinking that Arthur will see.

He's able to see that they're almost identical except for how worn the man's ring is, before Arthur's hand stills on the furs and Owen remembers that the man had tapped his finger against his lips, telling Owen that he's supposed to keep this a secret. He rushes to hide the ring in his hands again.

"What was that?" Arthur says.

"Nothing," Owen says too quickly.

"What were you doing?"

"Nothing."

Arthur's shifting again, trying to lean forward to see what Owen has cupped in his hands. There's something in Arthur's face and Owen wonders if he's angry again, like when they were talking about Owen's magic.

"Show it to me."

"No," Owen says, hiding his hand behind his back.

"Please," Arthur says, but it sounds like a command, "I just want to see it."

"It isn't anything," Owen says, "It's just nothing. A rock. From a game I was playing."

"That wasn't a rock," Arthur says, lifting up his arm, "It looked like a ring."

"It wasn't."

Even with his wound and the bandages and the furs weighing Arthur down, he still manages to reach out and grab Owen's arm before Owen can twist away. He easily takes the ring and its string from Owen's hand.

"You're not s'posed to see that!" Owen cries, but it's too late. Arthur is staring at the ring like he's never seen anything like it, like he cannot fathom what's in his hand.

"Owen," he says, voice low and trembling, "Where did you get this?"

"Nowhere," Owen says.

Arthur snaps up his head to look at Owen and there is fire in his eyes, in his entire expression.

"Where did you get this?" He repeats, each word slow and deliberate. He clenches his fist around the ring. "Tell me. Where."

"I found it," Owen lies, "Out in the garden, I think, I don't remember–"

"You said I wasn't supposed to see it. Why?"

The look on Arthur's face is frighteningly intense, so much that Owen scrambles to his feet and backs away.

"Why?" Arthur demands.

"You're just not!" Owen cries, because he doesn't know, really, why Arthur shouldn't know where he got the ring except that the man told him to keep it a secret, and if Arthur finds out about the man then he might tell Mother and Mother might be angry.

"What's going on?"

Sir Gwaine, who must have been woken by the shouting, now sits up groggily to see Arthur holding a clenched fist as Owen tries to back away.

"The ring, Merlin's ring–"

"What?"

"Gwaine, look," Arthur gasps, and thrusts his fist out and opens it for Gwaine to take a look.

"No!" Owen shouts, because that would be a second person who sees the ring who isn't supposed to.

"It's Merlin's ring," Arthur says as Gwaine looks, "I'd know it anywhere."

"No it isn't," Owen insists.

"Whose is it then?" Gwaine asks, "Your mother's?"

"Your mother," Arthur repeats, with a funny sound to his voice like he's just thought of something vitally important, and snaps around to look at Owen, "Oh my god."

He stares, face slack with shock, and then suddenly he's struggling out of bed, shoving furs off of him and lurching towards Owen.

"Oh my god," he says again, clutching at his torso but still staring at Owen.

"What?" Owen asks frantically, because Arthur looks half crazed. "What's going on?"

"Sire, your wound," Gwaine says, but Arthur ignores him, kicking until he's off the bedroll and kneeling before Owen, the fist that holds the ring clutching at his side.

"Look at you," Arthur breathes, "Oh god, you're so big."

"Who? Me?"

Arthur opens his mouth but says nothing. His mouth hangs open in a silent scream somewhere between joy and awe, harsh breaths coming out instead of words. If he'd looked at Owen intensely before today, this is a whole new kind of stare that Owen thinks he's seen somewhere before, like Owen is the most wonderful and complex thing the world could possibly produce and Arthur cannot take his eyes away.

Then Arthur extends his arms and suddenly Owen is being hugged, crushed against Arthur's chest.

Owen stiffens. Arthur's skin is hot with fever, and Owen can feel Arthur's sweat and blood soaking into his clothes from Arthur's wound.

"Gareth," Arthur whispers, and he says the word so softly that Owen isn't sure he heard it, but then Arthur whispers it again, trembling into the air by Owen's ear.

"No way," comes Sir Gwaine's awed voice.

Finally Owen finds footing and pushes himself out of Arthur's arms.

"What's going on?" He demands. "Why did you say 'Gareth?'"

Arthur is still reaching for him, arms halfway extended like he might grab Owen again.

"It's you," Arthur says, "You're Gareth."

"No, Gareth is your baby," Owen corrects, "I'm Owen. I'm Mother's baby."

"Arthur, are you sure?" Gwaine asks with concern, but his voice is just as hopeful as Arthur's.

"I'm sure. You wouldn't remember," Arthur trembles to Owen, "My child was stolen from me eight years ago. You wouldn't remember any of that."

"But I'm not your child!"

"You look like him. When I first saw you I thought how much you looked like Merlin and I couldn't breathe. I couldn't bear to look at you. And you've got magic like he did, and you have his ring."

He barks out a startled laugh.

"And you're alive," Arthur says, "All this time I thought you were dead."

"That doesn't make any sense! I'm Mother's child!" Owen insists.

"It has to be that woman, her husband is too dumb to have orchestrated something like this," Gwaine says.

"Hey! Don't talk about my parents like that!" Owen scowls at the both of them. "You're being dumb. Give me my ring back." He holds out his hand.

"Gareth–"

"My name is Owen."

For a moment Arthur looks like he wants to argue, but then he sighs.

"Owen. Who gave you this ring? Where did you get it?"

"I'm not telling."

"Owen, please."

"Not until you give it back!"

Arthur grimaces and exchanges frantic looks with Gwaine.

"Owen please, this is important."

"No."

"Then I'll find him myself."

Arthur braces himself and lifts himself to his feet. At once he lets out a groan and almost collapses again, grabbing at his bandages. Fresh blood is staining the outermost layers.

"Arthur, maybe you should wait, let me gather the men," Gwaine suggests, but Arthur waves him off.

"Spread the word, tell my men we're searching the castle. I'm going myself. They must be holding him in the dungeons, I can make it there."

He takes a shaking step forward, going pale with the pain of it. His fist doesn't unclench from around the ring.

"Give me my ring back! He said I wasn't s'posed to–"

"Who?"

Owen snaps his mouth shut.

"Nobody. Just give me my ring back."

"Somebody gave this to you?" Arthur asks, breathing hard now that he's on his feet, "Who? What did he look like?"

Owen scowls. Arthur must take that as confirmation that Owen got the ring directly from Merlin himself, because he nods and starts walking again.

Gwaine hands Arthur his sword and holds the tent flap open for Arthur to walk through before ducking out himself. Owen runs to follow.

Outside there are people up and about, servants fetching buckets of water and soldiers enjoying a moment of morning calm. They all look up in surprise at the sight of Arthur, hunched over and wearing only his breeches, clutching at bloodied bandages and looking ahead of him with an awfully determined expression. Several people approach and tell Arthur he should get back in bed, but Arthur waves them off and continues out of the field and towards the village where the castle stands.

Owen has no choice but to follow. Gwaine walks beside Arthur, motioning to the Camelot knights that they pass that he will explain later what's going on.

The anger that Owen felt turns to fear as they approach the castle. Fear that Arthur will discover the man in the dungeons and then tell Mother, and that Mother will be so angry when she finds out that Owen has been going behind her back and against her orders all this time just to talk to this man she has locked up. He's dangerous, he knows, he's a criminal, and Mother will be angry and then she will be worried and it will be Owen's fault.

A small crowd has assembled behind them by the time they reach the steps of the castle, Camelot knights and Dorian citizens curious to see why King Arthur is so fiercely making his way into the citadel, groaning with pain all the while.

Arthur climbs the steps to the castle, panting hard. He has to stop and kneel, resting against the steps, to catch his breath. Sweat covers every inch of his skin, plastering his hair to his forehead. The blood on his bandages are still bright red.

"Please don't go inside," Owen pleads while Arthur rests, "Mother will be so angry with me."

"Why would she be angry with you?" Gwaine asks, because Arthur is too winded to speak.

"I'm not supposed to have that ring," Owen says, "And if she finds out…"

"Owen," Arthur gasps, and meets Owen's eyes, "I promise you, no matter how angry your mother gets, I will make sure she does not harm you. You have my word."

Owen says nothing, certain that nothing Arthur does will stop Mother's anger. Arthur doesn't wait for a response, heaving himself back to his feet and making his way into the castle.

There are some guards standing at attention inside the doors, who startle at the sight of Arthur.

"Lord King, should you be exerting yourself like this? If you wish to speak with the Lady Beatrix we can send for her–"

"No," Arthur says, "Leave her alone. I'm fine."

Gwaine grimaces at them and Owen gives them a troubled look before following him and Arthur down the hall.

"Where are the dungeons?" Arthur asks, "Dammit, I thought I'd seen a dungeon door, where was it?"

"Here," Gwaine says, and the three turn down another hallway.

The castle is silent compared to the early morning bustle of the village outside. Here there are only the stone walls and threadbare tapestries hanging still in the early morning light. Here nobody is awake yet, nobody to see what is happening, nobody to alert Mother of Owen's disobedience.

Anxiety seizes Owen's chest. Nothing he can do will stop Arthur from finding the man in the dungeons, so all he can do is follow to see what will happen. The nearer they get to the forbidden dungeon staircase, the harder Owen's heart thumps, the louder it roars in his ears. It feels like the time Mother wanted him to kill the bird, how frightened and helpless he'd felt then.

He can't stop Arthur's advance, and all too soon they're approaching the dungeon stairs.

Arthur collapses against the doorway, staring down into the darkness below. His breaths are harsh and ragged, amplified by the stone.

"You go down," Gwaine says, placing a hand on Arthur's shoulder, "I'll stand watch."

"Thank you, Gwaine," Arthur says, and then he takes a step down, and another, and soon he's been swallowed by the darkness.

Owen stands, frozen with fear, at the top of the stairs, thinking of all the times when he was little when he'd stood here and longed to know what was down there that he wasn't allowed to see, and all the times since then that he's stood here wondering if he should go down again, this time, or if this will be the time that Mother finds out. He thinks of all the times he's decided he'll be alright and bounded down the steps, eager to play with the man in the cell, and now he wishes he'd never set foot in there.

"You going to follow him, little prince?" Gwaine asks, and Owen swallows and follows Arthur down the steps.

Arthur isn't that far ahead. Owen can hear him shuffling and coughing with exertion in the dark, can imagine him leaning against the walls in pain. He runs forward and fishes through the darkness until he finds Arthur's free hand, the one that isn't still clutching the man's ring. Arthur grabs Owen's hand when they touch and holds it tight.

Together they descend into the darkness until they reach the final step. Owen bends down to find a torch he knows he left there and lights it.

The long narrow tunnel looms ahead of them, so cold, so dark, and so full of nightmares. Not so long ago Owen saw this tunnel as the gateway to adventure, but now he wants to run away from it forever, leave the adventures to someone else, someone more brave. Owen squeezes Arthur's hand, shrinking away from the way his heart is beating wildly in his chest.

"Merlin?" Arthur calls into it, so ragged that the word is almost unintelligible. It echoes through the hall, over and over, and just as it's dying away there's the answering clink of metal.

Owen finds himself trembling with fear and grips Arthur's hand tighter.

"Merlin!" Arthur calls again, and the metal sounds again, and then there's an arm sticking out of a cell not far away, chained and waving up and down at them.

Owen stumbles because Arthur starts to run, yanking Owen with him, towards that arm.

"Merlin? Merlin!"

And then Arthur is on his knees, sobbing and reaching his arms through the bars of the cell to grab at the man inside.

Owen stands a short distance away and watches the two men grasp each other, close as they can get through the bars of the cell, clutching at faces and clothes and hands.

"Is it really you? Merlin?" Arthur gasps, and the man nods frantically, cupping Arthur's face.

Arthur laughs once, a hysterical yelp that sounds huge in the dungeons, and the man laughs in return, a smile stretching across his face so much it might split. He's radiant, despite the shadows of the cell and the layers of grime and dirt on his skin, joy and wonder and absolute love pushing all of that away. There is no darkness anymore, no more sadness, no more of that horrible hopelessness Owen has seen in his face before. As he reaches through the bars to pull Arthur closer, the years of darkness and loneliness are suddenly gone, yanked from the man's mind and transformed into joy.

Arthur and the man try to embrace, but the thick bars of the cell block them from doing so. Arthur slaps them in frustration, then casts about to find the lock. It's right above his head and he reaches up to jiggle it.

"Owen, can you open this?"

Owen, surprised by being addressed after it seemed he'd been forgotten, startles.

"I shouldn't…"

"But you can. Please." Arthur turns to look at Owen, keeping one hand entwined with the man's. "Owen, this is my husband, the one I lost. I promise you I will not let anyone harm you if they get angry with you."

Owen looks from one to the other: Arthur's face desperate, the man's hopeful. The man nods, grinning, and so Owen waves his hand and his eyes flash gold the lock opens with a loud click.

And then it's like they've forgotten that Owen is there, that anything else exists in the entire world other than each other, as the doors swing open with a groan and Arthur and the man collide with such force that they're knocked to the ground. Arthur brings up an arm to curl around the man's back, strong fingers buried in his tangled hair, and holds on tight.

The room is filled with the sound of harsh breathing, muffled because of noses buried in shoulders, the sound of relieved sobs like they'd just run up a flight of stairs, or had just woken from a nightmare and found that they were still, in fact, safe.

Owen shifts his weight from one foot to the other, unsure of what to do but hold the torch and watch as the two sit up again, still clutching each other as though neither can believe that the other is real.

"Merlin, god, hang on, let me look at you…" Arthur holds the man at arm's length, taking in his dirty face, his matted hair, the chains on his wrist. Arthur doesn't seem to mind that the man's hair is so tangled, or that his skin is so gnarled and dirty that a thousand baths probably wouldn't clean him. He looks only happy, so dazedly happy to see him that the grim and dirt may as well be gone. Indeed, Arthur doesn't seem to mind that blood is flowing almost freely from his torso now. If it's causing him any pain, Arthur shows no notice of it.

"What happened?" Arthur asks, fingering the iron collar around the man's neck, "I thought– god, Merlin, I thought you were dead!"

The man shakes his head.

"What have they done to you? What happened?"

"He can't speak," Owen says.

"What?" Arthur asks, still gazing at the man, still holding onto him.

"He can't speak," Owen repeats, "He doesn't have a tongue."

"What do you mean?"

In answer, the man opens his mouth for Arthur to see, smile fading for the first time since Arthur came. Arthur stares into the gaping dark hole between the teeth; no tongue, just scar tissue.

"Oh, Merlin," he breathes. The man closes his mouth again.

The longer Owen looks, the harder it is for him to figure out what's going on. He watches the two embrace again, planting kisses to whatever patch of skin they can reach, until they fall into each other's arms and stay like that, holding each other on the stone floor. In the flickering shadows of Owen's torch, Arthur and the man's limbs are almost indistinguishable from one another, so closely are they embracing. There's no way the man is Merlin, Arthur's husband who was kidnapped along with their baby. There's also no way that Owen, himself, is the baby Gareth. It's impossible, because Owen is Mother and Father's child and has been in Doria his whole life, he's never even been to Camelot. Neither has the man, he's been in the dungeons for years, there's no way…

Owen can't think of any other explanation for why Arthur and the man would be holding each other so tightly, or why their rings would match, and yet he can't believe it because it can't be true.

It can't be true.

After what seems like hours the two finally break apart, the better to see each other clearly.

"These chains," Arthur murmurs, running his fingers along the metal. As he does so, the man notices the bandages around Arthur's torso, so bloodied now that it's running down his skin. He lets out a shout of alarm.

"It's nothing," Arthur says dismissively, almost laughing, but his voice is shaking and his skin is too pale. He seems not to care, too focused on the man in front of him to think about the wound in his side.

"He got stabbed in battle," Owen tells the man, "He fought the Saxons off."

The man looks disapprovingly up at Arthur, but the look is gone almost instantly to give way to relief.

"I'll get plenty of rest later, I promise," Arthur says, "I have no intention of leaving you now that I've just found you again."

The man smiles at that, then looks to Owen and extends his hand.

Owen looks at it. The fingers are dirty and gnarled and discolored, but that has never stopped him from taking it before. Curiosity used to make him take it, examine it for clues about who this man is, what he might have done to get him locked up here for seven years. He wanted to offer comfort, too, those days when the man was too sad to play, or when Owen was crying and wanted comfort himself. The hand was extended as an offering of friendship, or a plea for companionship. Now the man who Arthur is calling Merlin is offering something else, something far larger than Owen ever thought he'd have to confront. This man, who has been kept silent and restrained all these years, is claiming to be Owen's father, not his friend. to take his hand would be to accept that he is right, that Owen was stolen away as a child, that his Mother is a bad woman who steals away children and husbands.

Owen shakes his head hard and backs away.

"Owen," Arthur says, extending a hand of his own, "I know this is overwhelming for you–"

"You're not my father!" Owen interrupts, "Father is my father, Mother is my mother!"

"She stole you," Arthur says calmly, as the man from the cell shakes his head, "I'm sorry, Owen."

"You're lying!" Owen screams, and Arthur and the man who can't be Merlin have time to look upset before the sound of Sir Gwaine's voice sounds down the corridor.

"Arthur! The guard is coming!"

At that shout both the man and Arthur stiffen, and Owen is reminded that Mother knows now, that Owen has disobeyed her and gone into the dungeon.

"On no," He whispers, not wanting to go upstairs, but the men are rising to their feet and, hands clasped, are making their way towards the stairs.

Owen trails behind, torn between believing that Arthur will keep his promise and protect him from Mother's wrath, and his anger at him for daring to accuse her of kidnapping.

With each step Arthur grunts from the pain in his side. At the first it's quiet, but the second is almost a roar, stumbling over his feet.

The man from the cell instantly throws his arm around Arthur's middle and places Arthur's around his shoulders. Soon Arthur is being all but dragged along, the man doubled over under with the effort of supporting another body and his own lack of familiarity with walking more than ten steps at a time.

The sound of shouting echoes, getting louder as the trio gets nearer to the light. There are two Camelot knights at the top of the stairs now, swords drawn as a group of Dorian guards try to fight their way past. With a chill Owen recognizes Mother's angry voice, screaming somewhere in the hall beyond.

"...Get your hands off me, you have no right! Guards, guards!"

She stops abruptly as, with a groan of agony, Arthur and the man appear over the shoulders of the Camelot knights.

"Merlin!" Sir Gwaine exclaims with joy, a bright smile crossing his face as he sees the man from the dungeon emerge into the light.

Owen peeks out from behind them, then gasps with the beginnings of anger as he sees that two other Camelot knights are holding onto Mother's arms, keeping her backed up against a wall, while two more fight off the Dorian guards trying to free her.

"Mother!" Owen shouts, fear forgotten, replaced by a blinding rage.

"Owen!" Mother shouts, and when she says his name she doesn't sound angry with him at all, "My darling, come here."

Owen pushes past the wounded king of Camelot to rush towards Mother, but one of the knights grabs his arm to pull him back.

"You won't lay a hand on him-"

"No!" Owen jerks his arm out of the knight's grip and runs towards Mother, arms outstretched, and hugs her around the middle. "Stop hurting her!"

The commotion ceases. Both the Dorian and the Camelot soldiers lower their swords as Owen glares around at them, still hugging his Mother, and screams.

"Let go of her! She is my Mother! Go away!"

He squeezes his eyes shut and pushes with all his might, hugging Mother tighter, and suddenly the knights holding her are pushed aside as an invisible force hits them like a punch to the gut. As soon as they're gone the Dorian guards step in, swords drawn, daring the knights to try again to grab her.

"Oh, Owen, my baby, thank you," Mother croons, wrapping her arms around him now that she's free.

Owen buries his face into her stomach.

"They said you're not my real mother," he sobs, muffled by her dress, "King Arthur said that he's my real father and you kidnapped me and the man in the dungeons. You wouldn't do that, Mother, you wouldn't!"

"Arthur is a liar," Mother says fiercely.

"Don't listen to her, Owen."

"Shut up!" Owen shouts.

Apparently he didn't have to shout to get people to be quiet. As he does, there's a loud, pained grunt and a thump, and then all of the Camelot knights are rushing to the doorway of the staircase.

"Sire, your wound," Says one of the knights that was introduced as Elyan, "Someone fetch a physician, get him to a bed!"

King Arthur has collapsed, skin pale as the moon and covered in a thick layer of sweat, the blood too bright soaking through his bandages and pooling on the floor and onto the clothing of the man from the dungeons, who has Arthur in his arms and is frantically fluttering his hand over the wound, low rumbles coming out of his throat and eyes flickering with gold.

"It won't work, Merlin," Arthur croaks, lifting a hand to still the man's movements, "Not with the iron."

"I can get them off," Elyan says, "There's a smithy in the market just outside the castle, I need tools."

"I'll go," Says Sir Leon, and runs off without pausing to place his sword back in its sheath.

"Guards," Mother says, voice low but steady, "Whatever you do, do not let him take the chains off of that man."

"Why not?" Owen asks, raising his now tearstained face to look curiously at the chains and cuffs still on the man's wrists.

"He will hurt me," Mother answers him, "And he will hurt you too, Owen, because he's a bad, bad man. He hates me and all of Doria. I was merciful when I locked him up. I should have killed him."

"What did he do?"

"Something terrible," Mother whispers, voice shaking now as she watches the man, still desperately trying to heal Arthur, shouting as his eyes flare golden and once again flicker back to blue. Mother must be right, Owen thinks, for her face is white with fear, eyes bright with worry, and he doesn't think he's ever seen her look so afraid.

"I'll protect you, Mother," Owen promises, "He won't hurt you."

Mother says nothing, only continues to hold him and watch.

Rushing footsteps echo through the hall as Sir Leon returns, panting hard. He carries an armful of the blacksmith's tools- hammers, tongs, shears- and holds them out towards Sir Elyan as he approaches.

Only there's more people than just Leon. Owen's eyes widen in fear as he sees what looks like a crowd following behind, so many that their footsteps shake the floor beneath them, faces grim and determined. They are the Camelot knights, each and every one of them, each with their swords drawn.

"Mother," Owen whimpers.

"Run!" Mother cries, and she pushes him away from her, away from the knights, to run ahead of her.

Owen runs, heart pounding, skin vibrating with fear, as Mother follows behind. He runs as fast as he can, faster than he's ever run in his entire small little life, fast because the world is ending.

They don't get far. The clatter of the knights fighting the Dorian soldiers ring through the castle, but suddenly above the noise there's a burst of power so immense that it knocks Owen forward onto the hard stone floor, Mother falling close behind. It rolls over Owen, wave after wave of hot golden light. Owen screams, covering his eyes from the assault as the light keeps coming, so hot it almost burns his skin.

Suddenly as it came it stops. The light dims back to the cool morning sun, and although it is no longer hot, Owen can still feel power and magic crackling in the air all around him.

He sits up and looks behind him.

Already people are being pushed aside, Camelot and Dorian alike, as King Arthur and the man from the dungeons emerge from the crowd of soldiers.

No trace of illness or injury shows on Arthur's body anymore. The bandages have fallen away, revealing only dried blood smeared across a torso with no wound. His skin is no longer pale, he is no longer weak, but he stands with authority in every limb. Beside him stands the man, no longer chained, eyes shining so golden that it appears as if the entire sun is contained inside of him, bursting to get out.

Standing upright, hand in hand, both of their eyes are fixed only on Owen, trembling on the floor away from them.

"Seize her," Arthur orders calmly, "Get her away from him."

At first Owen is too shocked, too frightened, to do anything but watch as two Camelot knights stalk towards Mother, scrambling backwards on the stone floor of the corridor, and grab her by the arms.

"No!" she exclaims, and her shout unfreezes Owen from his frozen spot on the floor.

"No!" He shouts, launching himself towards her, "Stop it! Don't touch her!"

"We won't hurt her, Owen," Arthur says as the knights begin to haul Mother away. Owen chases after her, fists raised.

"Owen!" Mother cries, reaching towards him even as she is dragged down the corridor, "Owen, please, whatever they tell you, they're lying to you-"

"Get her away from him!" Arthur roars.

A pair of arms encircle Owen and pull him back from his pursuit of his mother, lifting him into the air even as he kicks and screams with all his might.

"Mother!"

She's out of sight now, dragged around a corner. The last thing Owen sees of her is her eyes, desperate and frightened and needing to be protected.

"Mother!"

Owen pushes and pushes his magic out, out, out, but the blast from before must have taken all the power in him because the knight holding onto him doesn't loosen his hold.

"We won't hurt her," the knight assures, and Owen recognizes the voice as Sir Gwaine's.

"You're a liar!" Owen screeches, aiming a kick at Gwaine's stomach but missing. "I hate you! Guards! Save Mother! You have to save Mother!"

But there are too many Camelot knights in the corridor now, so that the feeble Dorian guards have already surrendered by the time Owen calls for their help.

"Owen," Comes a soft voice, and then Arthur's face is close to Owen's, along with the man from the dungeons, the man who isn't Merlin, who isn't Owen's father and isn't his friend, the man who did a very very bad thing and was allowed to live because Mother is merciful and good.

_I promise you we will not hurt her, Owen. You have my word._

The voice is gentle and sounds like rainfall hitting cobblestones, or the sound bird's wings make when they launch into flight. It makes Owen stop struggling, because it came from inside of his head.

The man from the dungeons is looking at Owen steadily, solemnly, and tenderly.

_She will not be harmed._

Owen stares into the gold-blue of the man's eyes, no longer masked by a layer of milky-white film, and sees a demon.

Owen screams.

"You're a liar!"

He kicks again, this time aiming for the liars in front of him, the treacherous king of Camelot and the other man who want to take him away from Doria, who want to hurt Mother, who want to tear Owen's world apart.

"You're a liar! I hate you! I hate you! I'll kill you! Mother!"

"Take him somewhere safe," Arthur commands even as he backs away from Owen's wild kicks.

So Owen too is taken away, trapped in the arms of Sir Gwaine. He screams for Mother until that's all he can hear, and as Gwaine takes him into Owen's own chambers and shuts the door, his screams break down into sobs.


	10. Chapter Nine

The sound of the door slamming shut seems prolonged in the heavy silence of the room. As it dies in the air, other things take its place. There's tension in every corner of the room, on the faces of the Camelot knights and in the stiff shoulders of the king and his husband. There's magic too, Beatrix can taste it. It tastes like the air right before a great storm hits, the kind that is so powerful it can fell trees and makes Owen come running to her for safety in the night. The golden glow has faded from Merlin's eyes, but there remains a fire there, crackling and furious, and Beatrix can feel the heat coming off of him as his gaze stabs into her.

She tries not to show her discomfort. She keeps her shoulders thrown back, jaw stiff and held high as she returns Merlin's hard gaze, keeping her fear locked down, pushed somewhere into her belly so that her hands don't even tremble.

"I suppose you're going to kill me now," she says, and though she tries to say it loudly her voice seemed lost among the many grim-faced people in the room.

"No," Arthur says, "We promised our son we would not harm you."

"So what are you going to do to me?"

Arthur doesn't answer right away, and Merlin only continues to direct his gaze on her, unblinking.

"Perhaps we'll imprison you.," Arthur says, "We could strip you of your title and exile you. But we could just as easily burn you." The rage in his words are nearly as stinging as Merlin's power. Arthur advances, taking Merlin with him, tugging him by the hand, and Beatrix stands her ground as Arthur continues to speak. "We won't, because we promised Owen that we wouldn't and he has already been lied to enough. But there are so many ways I can think of to torture you for what you've done. If it weren't for Owen I would have you burned, or quartered, or drowned, or so much more to have you screaming for mercy. You deserve hell for what you've done to my family."

"I never hurt Owen," Beatrix says, even though Arthur is standing right before her now, so close that his bare feet brush the hem of her gown. "I never hurt him," she repeats.

She can see that he doesn't believe her, and neither does anyone else in the room, but she holds firm anyway. It's true, she thinks, that she gave Owen a fine life in her castle. She gave him her kingdom, intended for him to have all of it, and treated him like the prince he was. A prince is a prince is a prince, and she gave him the same fine clothes, the same good food that he would have had in Camelot.

"It's true that I took him," she says, "But I gave him a good life here. You only need to ask him. He loves Doria and he loves me."

"It's a lie," Arthur growls, "Everything you've ever told him has been false, and once he sees that he will hate you."

"He won't," Beatrix says, "Owen loves me deeply, I made sure of that. It will take much more than this to make him turn against me."

"So you will tell him. You will confess to him the truth and you will put right every lie you ever told him."

"And if I do not?"

Beatrix flinches at a sudden movement from the corner of her eye: Merlin's free hand flying up, not to deliver a blow, but to slap onto the side of her neck and hold on tight.

The moment his skin touches hers a voice floods Beatrix's mind, loud and paralyzing and filled with eight years of bitterness.

_We will destroy you,_ the voice says, as Merlin continues his unblinking stare, cutting deep, his long fingernails digging into Beatrix's skin as he tightens his grip. _We will set fire to the crops and slaughter your livestock so that you have nothing to eat. I will make sure the winter is harsh so that your people will suffer. Those who do not flee Doria for somewhere better will turn on you, I promise it, until you have nothing left._

"You-" Beatrix gasps, for though Merlin's hand isn't hindering her breathing, the voice in her head is so filled with passion that she doesn't doubt a word of what he says.

_I will make sure you pay,_ Merlin thunders in her head, the rage growing until there is no room in Beatrix's mind for anything else, _For what you've done to Owen. I've seen how you hurt him. You push his magic until he breaks under the strain and cries from the pain of it. Magic can't be used that way. It has to be nurtured, not abused, but even so nobody can do more than what they're given, and you have ignored that. More than that you make him feel inadequate. You make him feel unworthy and you make him doubt himself. But my son has nothing to prove to you._

_I will not hurt you because I promised my son I wouldn't. But you have my word that you will pay._

Merlin takes his hand away and the voice is gone from Beatrix's head, leaving her gaping. Her neck stings in five points, blood trickling from where Merlin's long nails pierced the skin, welling up and dripping down to stain the collar of her gown.

Even after that, Beatrix keeps her head high and her back straight, though it's harder to keep herself from shaking. She balls her hands into fists to stop them from trembling. Merlin's voice was so loud, so furious in her mind that its sudden absence is jolting.

She looks into the face of the man before her, the same face she looked into eight years ago when he was thrown into a chair and held there. He had no beard then, only scruff and dirt from the journey, and his clothing was clean and untorn, but the eyes are the same. The eyes, dark and bloodshot and narrowed, hold the same ferocity that they did eight years ago, only now they hold magic too, unrestrained by iron cuffs, and the promise that he will find a way to destroy her for laying a hand on his child.

Resentfulness bubbles up in her, taking over the icy shock from hearing his voice in her head. How dare he, who already has what he wants, speak against Doria like this? Already he has been freed, his magic returned, his husband reunited with him, his child in his presence, yet he threatens to destroy all of Doria for the sake of revenge.

"What right do you have to threaten my kingdom?" Beatrix spits, glad to hear that she speaks steadily, "My people have done nothing wrong. They took no part in the plot, this has nothing to do with them. You have what you want, your family and your freedom. Take Owen and go, then, and leave Doria alone."

"They will be welcome to settle in Camelot," says Arthur, who must have heard everything Merlin said to her, "They will not suffer for what you have done."

"And what of my husband?" Beatrix says, "Will he not share my punishment?"

"He will," Arthur says, "As will anyone else who had any hand in this plot."

"Then Doria will fall," Beatrix declares. "The Saxons will descend upon us the minute we're gone and my people will suffer then. You won't let that happen for the sake of simple revenge."

"Doria can find itself a new ruler."

"Doria will fall!" Beatrix shouts, startling a few of the knights around them, "You think Doria would be anything without me? When I became queen the kingdom was on the verge of collapse. The people were fighting among themselves, crops were failing, this land was almost wild territory. Henry was doing nothing for the kingdom, he would have seen it rot if it meant he could lie about more. He asserted his authority, no more. The only reason nobody had conquered Doria already was because nobody wanted it. Henry had been king for ten years already when I married him and he didn't care one bit for his people. His previous wives had done nothing either. I made Doria strong again, it was me who made peace again, I kept the people's stomachs full and their houses warm. I was eighteen when I became queen and I've spent my entire life since then devoted to saving Doria and I will not allow you to destroy all the work I've done. Take your child and leave Doria in peace."

While she speaks her resentment rises until she is shrieking right in Merlin and Arthur's faces, the knights in the room looking uneasy but the kings unflinching. When she finishes she breaths hard, expelling her own anger unto them. Beatrix's last word, peace, echos around the room and dies away, leaving a ringing silence that only increases the unease in the room.

Panting, gritting her teeth, Beatrix thinks back to when she was a girl, living in her mother and father's house right at the foot of the castle, looking out over the village and seeing houses standing in ruin, and children crying in the dirt unattended by any parent. She saw men fighting each other in drunken brawls and slapping their wives, she saw the fields brown and cold where wheat was supposed to grow. It was a block of ice that encased her stomach and crystallized around her veins and chilled her heart, watching her beautiful home fall to ruin like this, so different from when the fields were plentiful and the village was full of laughter and music.

She'd been better off than the rest of the feuding people, as she was the daughter of the king's dearest friend. Although her father wasn't a noble, he was favored by King Henry and so Beatrix grew up with food and warm clothing and privilege. But her friends, those who lived farther from the castle, were poor, hungry, often sick, and Beatrix watched as their families died and neither Henry nor either of his wives did anything about it.

But Beatrix was beautiful, and clever, and the daughter of the king's best friend, and so she caught the king's eye after his second wife passed away. She was eighteen, she was ripe, she was beautiful, and she was filled with rage from a chilled heart. With her rage and her looks and her father on her side, it wasn't hard at all to go to Henry and get him to marry her. And then it was work, hard, tiring work, every day to fix the wrongs her new husband refused to fix. It was worth it, finally, to see Doria's beauty restored, piece by piece and day by day, until it was the fifth anniversary of Beatrix's coronation and there was a crop in the field and the village was once again filled with laughter and music.

After so many years, after all of that work, Beatrix thinks fiercely, she will not let Doria fall again to ruin.

Arthur and Merlin consider her. Their faces didn't change while she shouted, their features arranged in the same stony hatred they'd held from the beginning. They're still holding hands, making Beatrix think they might be having a conversation in their heads, somehow using Merlin's magic to speak for the both of them. They don't speak, don't even look at each other.

"Why did you take them?" Arthur asks finally. Underneath the biting hatred, there's something else rippling underneath his words. It's more than anger, more than hatred: it's grief, it's hurt, it's absolute desperation from years of being alone and not knowing if his family was dead or alive.

The question surprises Beatrix, as she expected some dismissing remark about Doria, but she answers them anyways.

"I am barren," she tells them, "Henry had no heirs by his other wives and I could not conceive. Doria needed someone capable when I would eventually die and take the throne. It needed to be a child raised in Doria, as I was, so they would love it and do anything to keep it strong."

"Why Owen, then? Why did you take him and not one of the village children?"

"It had to be a guarantee," Beatrix says, "There could be no doubt that the child would be a good leader. Who better than Owen? The boy is the son of a Pendragon and of the man said to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world. If a boy like that grew up with Doria as his top priority he would be unstoppable."

"I did it for Doria," she says, when neither Merlin nor Arthur show any sign of reaction. "It was the only way. You would do the same for Camelot, wouldn't you?"

Still they stare at her. Beatrix holds her head high.

There's a tiny movement at the bottom of her vision, but Beatrix catches it, the way Merlin squeezes Arthur's hand once.

"We will bring Owen to you," Arthur says, "And you will explain yourself to him."

"Or?" She lifts one eyebrow, daring him to threaten her.

Arthur talks over his shoulder to address his knights.

"I need ten men to go into the village. Take the first five people you see and capture them. Age or gender does not matter."

"You can't take hostages!" Beatrix exclaims in alarm as a group of knights move towards the door.

"I will, and I will do what I like with them," Arthur says, "Unless you tell Owen everything."

The knights pause, looking to Arthur for a signal. Arthur watches her and waits.

Beatrix regards Arthur with a look of absolute disgust. Her eyes flicker about the room, searching for something that will save her, but all she sees are cold stone walls, narrow windows, and nearly two dozen Camelot knights guarding the only door.

"You," She snaps at the knight closest to the door, "Go fetch Owen and bring him here."

Arthur inclines his head in satisfaction, and the knight leaves the room accompanied by a second one. The door slams shut again.

Seething, Beatrix isn't expecting the hand that touches her neck once more.

_You will tell him the truth,_ Merlin says, _You owe him that much._

_________

Owen doesn't know how long he's been crying, head buried in his pillows, but when he finally hiccoughs himself to a stop he looks up to see Sir Gwaine sitting on a chair beside his bed, watching him curiously.

"Are they going to kill Mother?" Owen asks, rubbing the tears away from his eyes.

"No," Gwaine replies, "But they are going to give her a stern talking to."

"They're liars," Owen says, "They're not my parents. They can't be. Mother would never kidnap anyone."

Gwaine shrugs.

"Sometimes people have whole entire sides to them that you never knew were even there."

"But she wouldn't kidnap a baby," Owen insists tearfully, "She's a good person. It's Arthur and that man who are the bad ones."

Gwaine sighs.

"Look, Owen," he says, leaning forward to better hold onto Owen's gaze. "You love your mother very much, I can see that. It's hard to see the bad in someone when you love them. I don't know your mother very well, but I know Arthur and Merlin. They're good hearted and they wouldn't harm anyone without good reason. Sometimes they won't harm someone even if they do have a good reason. Whatever they're doing, they're doing what they believe is the right thing."

"But how can I be their child?" Owen asks, "Why would Mother kidnap me? And why would she take Merlin? If she just took him to put him in the dungeons, what's the point?"

"I don't know," Gwaine says, and he says it in a way that makes it seem like maybe he does know, a little bit, or has some idea, but doesn't want to say. "All I know is that the man that came from the dungeons is definitely Merlin, and you look a hell of a lot like him."

"I don't have a beard," Owen points out.

Gwaine laughs at that.

"No, no you don't," he concedes, "But it's like I said before. You've got the same eyes, the same hair, definitely the same ears. Even I thought it was uncanny when I first saw you."

"Just because I look like him doesn't mean I'm his child."

"Maybe not," Gwaine says, "But Arthur and Merlin wouldn't take over a castle on a mere suspicion."

"What if they did?"

Gwaine shrugs again.

"If it turned out they're wrong they'd apologize profusely, probably give your parents some lavish gift. They're kind people."

Owen shifts into a sitting position, curling his arms around his legs and hugging them tight to his chest. Part of him wants to start crying again, but he feels so drained already. All he wants is Mother, for her to hug him to her and tell him everything is alright, that it's just been a misunderstanding and that Owen is her beloved little boy.

"Mother isn't bad, she loves me," Owen says in a small voice.

"Love is more complicated than you think. You'll see that when you're older."

But she does love me, Owen thinks. She could be harsh with him during magic lessons, but only because she wanted him to do his absolute best so that he could be a good king for Doria. Outside of lessons, Mother was his to love. He remembers all the times she held him, played with him, told him stories. When he was younger she'd perch on the edge of his bed and tell him a story before he slept, stories of great kings and knights who went on grand adventures to rescue their lovers or their kingdoms. There was a time when Owen was five and he got sick, so hot with fever that he couldn't even get out of bed for a magic lesson, and Mother had sat at his side all day with water and bread, and smoothed the sweaty hair from his forehead and sung songs to soothe the ache. There was the time on Owen's sixth birthday when Mother had thrown a big party just for him and had let Mara and Duncan and all his village friends inside the castle, just for one day, so they could all have honey cakes and sweet meats. Or the time when there was a fantastic thunderstorm that was so loud that it shook the very stones of the castle and Owen ran into Mother's chambers and she scooped him into her arms and held him all through the night until he wasn't frightened anymore.

Mother loves me, I know she does, Owen thinks fiercely.

"Where's Mother now?" Owen asks, the image of Mother being dragged away flashing before his eyes.

"They're probably asking her a few questions," Gwaine answers, "I wouldn't worry about them harming her, though."

But Arthur and the man from the dungeon looked so angry, and they had all their knights with them, and Mother was so frightened.

"I should go down and protect her," Owen decides, making to get off the bed and go towards the door.

"That's not a good idea," Gwaine reaches out and holds Owen still, "Let the grown ups have their talk first."

"But Mother is scared," Owen says, "She doesn't have magic to protect her. I need to protect her."

"Your mother will be fine," Gwaine promises, "Right now you need to let her handle herself."

Owen glares up at Gwaine, then changes direction, going to the window and looking down on the market below.

There are more people than usual on the ground. Everyone is awake now, and the whole village must have heard about King Arthur stumbling through the village and into the castle even while wounded. Nobody is trying to get inside, though, as they know that the queen doesn't like people entering the castle unauthorized. They congregate in the market square, milling around the tables and booths and chatting, casting glances about them all the while in search of news.

Mara and Duncan are somewhere, Owen thinks, though he can't see them among all the people down there. Usually by now Owen would be playing with them before he has to have his lesson with Mother. They're probably wondering where he is.

The sky is a silent ceiling of clouds, and as Owen looks out over Doria he catches sight of a few snowflakes drifting down, fluttering in loops as the wind carries them right in front of Owen's window. Below, the people notice the snow too, holding hands up to shield their eyes as they look up towards the sky. Women draw their shawls tighter about their shoulders as their children run about their feet with upturned smiles, fighting to be the one to catch the first snowflake of the year on their tongue.

Owen watches them, then looks out across the land to where Doria stretches infinitely outwards into the distance. Beyond the village to the west lies the field with the army tents flapping in the wind, and to the east stands the forest, branches reaching their fingers up, still bearing a few withered brown leaves that refuse to break away. Snow begins to fall over all of it, small flakes at first, then bigger as more begin to come, turning the air white as they swirl gently around.

Not for the first time, Owen thinks that Doria must be the most beautiful kingdom there is.

"Are you alright?" Gwaine asks from behind him.

"It's snowing," Owen says.

"So it is."

There's a knock on the door then, and Gwaine looks to Owen first before calling out "Enter!"

It's Sir Leon and Sir Elyan who stick their heads through the door. Owen hasn't talked much with them during their stay in Doria, but they've both given him kind smiles when they see him and Owen thought he liked them.

"How are you feeling, Owen?" Sir Elyan asks, as Owen rushes across the floor to meet them.

"Is Mother alright?" Owen asks instead. Both knights nod their heads.

"She'd like to speak with you. Arthur and Merlin would too."

Owen looks over his shoulder at Gwaine, who nods.

"Let's go then," Owen says, and Leon and Elyan stand back to let Owen walk ahead of them.

The three knights, Leon, Elyan, and Gwaine, accompany Owen as they walk through the corridors to the room where Mother is kept.

"What does she want to say to me?" Owen asks, looking up at Leon, then at Elyan.

"She wants to explain a few things."

"What about Arthur and the man?"

"The same."

Owen's shoulders slump.

They approach the room, but before they can open the doors Gwaine stops them and crouches down to Owen's eye level.

"I know you're angry and that you don't trust them," he says, "But don't ignore them. Listen to what Arthur and Merlin have to say, alright? A good king only makes decisions once he has all the information. So listen and then you can decide whether to believe them."

Owen nods, and Gwaine smiles and claps his hand onto Owen's shoulder before straightening.

The doors open, and the first thing Owen sees is Mother, seated in a chair in the center of the room, eyes fixed on him.

"Mother!" Owen cries, running towards her and around her legs so he can hug her.

"Owen," Mother breathes, an immense sigh of relief escaping her as she puts her arms around him as well. "Are you hurt?"

"No, I'm alright, are you?" Owen asks, pulling away to check her for injuries.

"I'm fine," she replies.

"Owen," comes another voice, and Owen turns his head to see Arthur standing there, holding hands with the man from the dungeons.

Owen says nothing in greeting, only stares. They both look calmer than they did before, when everything was chaos, but there's still tension in the way they stand. Arthur still has blood dried on his torso, though the wound is gone now, and he looks just like Arthur the giant slayer that Mother told him all about. The man from the dungeon looks the same, but there's power emanating from every part of his body. Owen can feel the man's magic crackling around him, hot and buzzing, like it's replaced the very air itself.

When Owen looks at them, they both look as though they want to step closer to him, but they don't, and Owen is glad that they don't.

"The knights said you want to speak to me," Owen says.

"Yes, that's right," Mother says, returning his attention to her. Mother unwinds her arms from around him and takes his hands in hers. "I have things I need to tell you."

"What is it?"

"The truth. Who you really are."

A sense of cold dread settles over Owen's heart.

"What truth?"

Mother grimaces at him, eyes flickering to look at Arthur and the man before returning to Owen, steady and regretful.

She takes a deep breath.

"I know Arthur told you some things that I told you not to believe," she says, sounding like she's in great pain as she says it, "But that's the truth. Arthur...is your real father, not Henry. And I'm not your real mother."

Owens hands start to tremble violently in Mother's hands, so she squeezes them tighter to still them. Tears start to form in her eyes, making Owen's own eyes to wet as well. She continues to speak, and as she does so the tears in Owen's eyes spill over and run down his cheeks, only a few at first, and then more as if a great flood was sweeping through him. He doesn't make a sound, though, he keeps his sobs inside as Mother talks.

She holds his hands and cries, too. She tells him that she feared Doria's downfall and wanted an heir that could save the kingdom, but she couldn't have a baby of her own so she stole someone else's. She says she heard of a baby born of a great sorcerer and a Pendragon and knew she had to have that baby for her own, so she sent Sir Daniel and Sir Barbel all the way to Britain to fetch him and bring him back. She had no choice, she tells him, because otherwise Doria would fall as soon as she died and she could not let that happen. She says taking Merlin wasn't part of the plan, but if Daniel and Barbel let him go he would know how to track the baby down and so they had to take him as well, and that she was merciful by not killing him.

She tells him she's sorry. She holds Owen's face in her palm and strokes away his tears and tells him that she loves him. Even if he isn't born of her flesh, she loves him as if he really was her own.

When she finishes Owen says nothing. He stands, so frozen he thinks his heart might have stopped. The only movement is the trembling in his hands and the tears flowing steadily and heavily down his cheeks.

"Owen?"

Owen lets his hands drop from Mother's hands- No, not Mother, Lady Beatrix.

Lady Beatrix, queen of Doria, who is a kidnapper and a liar.

"Owen?" Beatrix's voice is soft and pleading. Before, Owen would have run to her at the first sound of that voice and done anything to make her stop sounding so sad. Instead he feels only hurt.

He turns away from her. He cannot look at her. There's a pounding in Owen's head, and something heavy settling in his chest, weighing down, down, down on his stomach. He cannot move. He cannot breathe. He cannot think.

There are so many pairs of eyes on him. So many knights with bated breath, ready to jump into action. Mother- Lady Beatrix- is watching him, tear-filled eyes boring into the back of his head. Before him are Arthur and the man, Merlin, watching him carefully, hardly daring to hope.

Merlin releases his fingers from Arthur's and crouches down to Owen's level, holding out a hand. Arthur follows a moment after.

Owen half expects Merlin to start speaking to him in his head again, like he did only an hour ago when Owen was fighting against him in the corridor. He doesn't now, and Arthur doesn't speak either. They only reach out to him, their smiles tired but tender.

Owen takes one step towards them, then another, and then he's stepping into their arms.

His legs give out. They catch him so that he doesn't fall, and Owen lets them hug him, the weight in his chest too heavy to hug them back. They don't seem to mind. They sag with relief against him. Merlin's magic, buzzing with so much tension minutes before, is now singing with joy.

It's so much. Somewhere in the background the woman who kidnapped him is crying. There's magic in the air all around them, and the emotions are rising up in Owen faster than he can stop them.

He wails as the weight of it all comes crashing around him. His body shakes with it, but it's alright.

His parents hold him, rocking him softly between them, as he cries.

Outside the snow is thickly falling, and Doria becomes hidden underneath a blanket of white.


	11. Chapter Ten

Tucked into a bed with the curtains drawn, their child sleeps. The room is filled with the light of the sun as it makes its way towards the horizon, reflecting white off the freshly fallen snow. The curtains could be closed, but Merlin wanted to let the light in.

On the far side of the room, behind an oversized privacy screen, Arthur kneels beside the bathtub and bathes his husband. Merlin lies against the edge with his eyes closed and lets himself be cleaned. He's already been shaved and his hair cut short again, and it's curious to feel the absence of hair tickling around his cheeks and shoulders. Instead there's warm water caressing his skin as Arthur rubs him with the washcloth, moving in small, slow circles on his back and long lines down the lengths of his arms.

Arthur takes his time. Carefully he removes the layers of dirt and grime that have become embedded into Merlin's skin. Where the washcloth can't reach, he uses his fingers, rubbing into the hidden crevices behind Merlin's ears and in between his toes. The water turns black as more and more skin is revealed, paler than before from years of seeing no sunshine. The scent of filth is countered with the dried lilac and mint leaves floating in the water.

He cleans Merlin's hands last. He massages the tough blackened skin of the wrists where the iron used to be, the place that would be open and bleeding if not for the magic. Arthur can feel Merlin's magic pulsing beneath his skin when he touches it, thrumming with power after being contained for so long. Merlin's nearly vibrating with it, though he's sitting still against the edge of the tub. Arthur tries to soothe him with his touch. He caresses each of Merlin's long fingers, fondles his palms, twines their fingers together and squeezes briefly before moving on to the other hand. When he's finished he leans forward and presses his lips to Merlin's knuckles, soft, just like he did when they were young and their love was fresh.

At the feeling of Arthur's kiss, Merlin opens his eyes and turns his head. They kiss, lingering on each others' lips, and then they simply lay their foreheads against the other's and rest.

"It's like you're back from the dead," Arthur whispers, so close that no more than a breath is needed for Merlin to hear.

_I know,_ Merlin says in Arthur's head, twisting their fingers together,  _I wish I could have come back sooner._

"There was a funeral," Arthur says, "The knights convinced me it would be better to assume you were dead. I wish-"

He stops talking as the memories come to him in flashes: Hunith crying in the courtyard, dressed all in black; An empty funeral pyre blazing in the courtyard; Children laying bundles of flowers and toys on the ground before it as offerings to the dead little prince; Himself, standing at the top of the stairs, watching the pyre burn and taking any hope of finding his family again with it, whisked away into the sky with the smoke and ash. He'd stood for hours, motionless, until the fire had died and the people had returned to their homes, and all that was left was a pile of embers surrounded by a ring of flowers and toys. His wedding ring felt heavy on his hand. When he'd finally gone inside, he saw that the servants were already clearing his chambers of Merlin and Gareth's things. He saw two people carrying away the cradle, someone else packing Merlin's clothes into a chest. He nearly shouted for them to stop, to leave everything as it was because they might come back some day and Merlin would need clothes, and the baby would need his cradle. Instead he let them carry on.

It seems impossible now, after believing him to be dead for so long, to have Merlin in his arms again. When Arthur stops talking Merlin understands, clutches a little harder at Arthur's hand. He's warm and solid, too real for Arthur to be afraid that this is all a dream.

_I'm here now._

"I'm sorry," Arthur says, "I only searched for you for one year. Just one. I should have gone longer, I shouldn't have given up on you so easily."

_Arthur,_ Merlin soothes,  _I understand. You did what you had to to keep Camelot safe. It's not your fault._

Arthur shudders.

"I love you," He says. His voice is trembling slightly, finally unguarded after speaking to Beatrix. There's no more sharpness from anger or shock. This is just Arthur with his strength drained out of him, boneless with relief as he clings to Merlin.

_I love you too. So much._

For a while there's no sound except for their breathing. Arthur inhales Merlin's scent, feels intoxicated by it. When Merlin disappeared Arthur held on to the smell for as long as he could before it faded from every piece of clothing left behind. It floods him now, sinks into every pore, that smell that reminds him of crackling campfires and glittering starry night skies. It's marred somewhat by the lingering smell of dungeon filth, but it is there and Arthur latches onto it, determined never to let it go.

"Let me see," Arthur croaks. Merlin leans back so he can open his mouth and let Arthur see inside. The sight of that black hole, the scarred, angry flesh at the back of the throat, sickens Arthur to the core.

_It's alright,_ Merlin says in his mind,  _I've already gotten used to it._ He closes his mouth to press a kiss to Arthur's slack lips.  _I'm fine now._

Arthur can only tremble.

_I missed you,_ Merlin says,  _I never got to say goodbye to you, to either of you. Seven years in the darkness without anyone to see or hear or touch, before Owen found me. Just the rats._

If this were any other time, Arthur might have made a lewd comment about Merlin longing for his touch like a maiden, but he dismisses the thought. Now is the time for truth, before they go back to calling each other "prat" and "clotpole." They'll have years and years for that, to go back to the teasing insults and banter they used to share. Instead he imagines Merlin as he'd first seen him, bearded and dirty and weighed down with chains, huddled in the cold and eternal dark.

"How did you survive?"

_I never stopped believing I'd see you again one day._

"You know what I mean. Nobody could survive seven years alone in a dungeon like that."

Merlin shrugs.

_It must have been my magic. Just because it was restrained doesn't mean it was gone. I think it still worked internally, enough so that I could survive. Keeping me warm, amplifying any value of rat so I wouldn't starve, things like that. It got better when Owen came._

"How did he find you?"

Merlin, to Arthur's surprise, chuckles a little.

_He lost control of his ball when he was playing. It bounced down the stairs and right up to my cell._

"Like destiny."

_Like destiny, yeah._

"Funny thing."

Funny how it led Merlin to Camelot, a lifetime ago, how it guided Merlin into Arthur's life. Was it destiny that they fell in love? That they had a child together? Was it destiny that he and Merlin were stolen away, or was that an accident? It must have been the latter, or Owen's ball would not have fallen down the stairs that day, and Beatrix wouldn't have been faced with a threat big enough to turn to Camelot for help, and Arthur would not have been victorious over the Saxons so that he could come back and find Merlin's ring in Owen's hands.

Merlin pulls away, making to stand up, and Arthur rises with him to help him step out of the tub. He reaches for the towel hanging over the top of the privacy screen, but Merlin only grins when Arthur hands it to him. His eyes flash gold, and suddenly Merlin's hair ruffles as a strong wind circles around him, even though the windows are all closed. It lasts only a second, and then it's gone again, leaving Merlin completely dry with a gleam in his eye.

_I missed doing magic,_ Merlin informs him, and Arthur can feel the exhilarated joy in his voice. It makes Arthur grin too, and reach out to tug Merlin into a deep kiss.

"I missed that too. I missed everything."

_There's a lot to make up for, then._

Merlin dresses himself with magic, just because he can, and Arthur watches the clothing fly into the air and fit themselves to Merlin's body, laces tying without hands. The happiness in Merlin's face fills Arthur's heart as he watches. For the thousandth time since he went into the dungeons, Arthur's eyes roam Merlin's body, taking note of every crucial detail, every feature that proves that this is his Merlin alive and really here before him.

His profile is the same slender nose and full set of lips, his cheekbones even sharper than they were before. His hair is the same raven black, his ears are still endearingly overlarge. But there are differences too, signs that Merlin got older in the time they were apart. His skin is a little rougher than the marble smooth it used to be. There are more wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Arthur supposes he looks older too, if only slightly. The years he spent in mourning are probably still there in his gaze, there for Merlin to see and regret. But despite the differences, their faces are the same. It is still the same Merlin, the same pale skin and dark hair and bright blue eyes, who now stands fully dressed, grinning and reaching for Arthur's hand.

Together they step outside of the privacy screen and approach the bed on the other side of the room.

The curtains are drawn, obscuring their view of the bed's occupant, so they pull it aside as quietly as they can to look down on their sleeping child.

Though it is only midday, the tumultuous morning and the enormity of what had all happened made Owen tired. After he finished crying, his eyes drooped and he slumped against Merlin's chest. They instructed two knights to escort Lady Beatrix to her chambers and keep her there until they decided what to do with her. Her punishment could wait. For now Arthur and Merlin would let Owen rest, so they carried him away and into Arthur's guest chambers.

He looks so small in the enormous bed, nearly swallowed by the pile of blankets. There's only a little bit of puffiness left from his tears. Otherwise he looks utterly peaceful lying there on the pillows.

_He's beautiful._

"He is," Arthur agrees, "He looks like you."

Merlin smiles.

"How did you know it was him?" Arthur asks in a whisper, "I didn't recognize him until I saw he had your ring."

_I knew right away,_ Merlin answers, his free hand keeping the curtain held aside,  _I thought he looked a bit like you._

"Like me?" Arthur says in disbelief, "How?"

_He had that look you used to get, when you were doing something you weren't supposed to be doing. You looked like that all the time when you were a prince and you went against your father's rules. Owen was forbidden to go anywhere near the dungeons but he went down anyway, and he was frightened of what Beatrix would do if she found out but he was excited all the same, I could tell. He couldn't resist the adventure._

Looking at him now, Arthur wonders at how he didn't see that this child was his own son. He had frozen when he'd first laid eyes on him, thought for just a moment that he'd found his child at last, but told himself firmly that it was grief telling him that. He'd thought the same thing about a hundred children before he came to Doria.

"Do we call him Owen or Gareth?" Arthur wonders aloud. "He got so angry when I tried to call him Gareth earlier."

_That might change now that he knows the truth,_ Merlin says.  _He'll tell us. It's not going to be easy for him from now on._

"But we will take him back to Camelot."

Merlin sighs.

_Doria is his home. Nothing will change the fact that he grew up here. He won't want to leave._

"We can take him back to visit someday."

_He's not going to trust us right away, even now he knows we're his real parents._

Merlin leans into Arthur, letting him wrap an arm around his waist and leaning into him.

_We can't let Doria fall to ruin. Owen would never forgive us._

"We'll think of something," Arthur says. "Something for Beatrix, too." Now that the initial shock and rage is gone, the need to punish Beatrix has faded. She had looked remorseful earlier, when she'd confessed her treachery to the boy she'd kidnapped, and Arthur almost pitied her before he reminded himself that it might be a trick.

"We could leave some knights here to watch over her," Arthur suggests, "Make Doria a territory of Camelot. Make sure Beatrix behaves."

_She wouldn't accept that._

"Why not? She'd get to keep her kingdom."

_Her pride wouldn't survive it._

"Still," Arthur says, "We can't just let her go. I'm sure Sir Renalt would be willing to stay and keep an eye on her."

_Perhaps. I suppose she doesn't have much choice._

"Do you think she loved him?" Arthur asks quietly.

Merlin doesn't answer right away. He's looking down on Owen, so innocent in sleep.

_I don't know. Maybe._ Merlin sighs again.  _He definitely loved her. Even if she didn't love him, she did care for him. He would always tell me about the things she did for him, how good she was. The only times she was bad was when he couldn't do magic, which was often._ Merlin's expression turns sour.  _She hit him once._

"What?" Arthur asks in alarm.

_He came to me crying. That was the first time I held him. She wanted him to kill a bird with his magic and he couldn't do it, so she hit him. He came to me for comfort._

"He told me about the bird," Arthur says, "I had no idea she hit him." Anger stirs in him again at the thought of his son being hurt. "She couldn't have loved him, then."

_She might have,_ Merlin says,  _Owen told me how good she was to him outside of magic lessons._

"She only wanted to get him on her side."

_That's true. Whatever happened, Owen loved her._

Merlin pulls away in order to sit on the edge of the bed. Arthur goes with him. The curtain falls without Merlin's hand to hold it aside, wrapping them in a dim cocoon of warmth.

_He's a good boy,_ Merlin says. He's closer to Owen than Arthur is, so he reaches out to brush a stray hair from Owen's face.  _He comforted me when he told me you were here._

"He did?"

Merlin nods.

_I needed to get out so desperately. I couldn't take the thought that you were here and I couldn't reach you. My magic exploded, but it exploded inside of me. I lost my mind. I tore my cell apart, I couldn't breathe, I kept screaming. My magic was trying so hard to get out that it hurt, like I'd swallowed fire and my entire insides were burning. I thought I actually had been thrown onto a pyre._

Merlin continues to touch Owen's face, light brushes of fingertips skimming the skin. Arthur follows the pattern Merlin draws. He places his own hands on Merlin's shoulders, comforting. The idea of Merlin trapped like that, tortured by his own magic, puts the taste of bile in Arthur's mouth.

_Owen found me like that, screaming my head off,_ Merlin continues,  _He didn't leave. I could tell he wanted to. He was scared of me then, but he stayed with me. Something he inherited from you._

Arthur leans his body forward, wrapping his arms around Merlin's waist and hooking his chin over Merlin's shoulder. He wants to cry, thinking of Merlin in pain and little Owen frightened of him. But he won't. Instead he holds Merlin tighter.

_He told me a story about you slaying a giant to calm me down._

Arthur chuckles.

"He told me that story too."

Merlin chuckles in response, and then they're both laughing hard, collapsing against one another and pressing hands to mouths to stifle their laughter so that they don't wake Owen.

_King Arthur, slayer of giants,_ Merlin says with giggle echoing his words.

They laugh at the absurdity of it. Then they laugh because they're together again, finally in each others arms while their child sleeps soundly beside them. They laugh out of relief because Owen and each other are alive and safe and they will never be separated again.

When their laughter has died down, and when they recover from the fresh wave of giggles that comes immediately after, they sigh.

_We missed so much of his life,_ Merlin says in a more sober tone.  _His first words, his first steps. I didn't even get to see his first time doing magic. He's almost grown now._

"He's still young," Arthur replies. He'd thought of that too, the remorse that he'd missed so many of his son's first steps of life. It hurt, but then he'd remembered that Owen is alive, which is better than Arthur could have wished for. "There'll be more firsts. His first fight, his first drink, his first heartbreak…"

_His heart has already been broken._

"You know what I mean. Besides, Beatrix never tried to teach him any skills other than magic. When we get back to Camelot I'll start teaching him how to fight with a sword. I bet he'll be brilliant."

_I'm sure he will be. He's your son after all._

"He's our son."

Merlin smiles, warm, glowing with contentment at the words.

_Our son. Our little prince._

Arthur ducks his head to press a kiss to the spot where Merlin's neck and shoulder meet.

"He's got us now. He's going to be amazing. He already is."

Truly he is, Arthur knows. Watching the boy sleep, excitement rises up in Arthur as the path of the future stretches in front of him. They have a lifetime now, years upon years for their family to reunite. Arthur wants to get to know his son, learn everything about him. He wants to find out what Owen's favorite dinner, his favorite childhood game, what makes him smile, what makes him laugh. Arthur wants to learn all about him and teach him everything he knows in return: how to fight, how to court, how to lead. He wants to make up for all the years lost and rebuild what they had, the family they should have been.

It can wait. Even if Owen doesn't like them at first, even if he lashes out and fights against them from his heartbreak, Arthur and Merlin will help him through it. They'll love him and they'll begin again.

They have time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it! Thank you all so very much for sticking with this story with me! There will be more of this in the future. I doubt there'll be a formal sequel, but there will be some short fics and one shots that'll be added in a series, so keep an eye out for that!


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